AUTHOR'S CORNER;

THE DAY IT RAINED

(Fiction)

As I walked the walk and swaggered my body, hands in pockets and head held high, I could feel the edge of the knife rubbing against my fingers, threatening and dangerous; my only friend.  The streets so quiet, not a soul dared to roam.  It was a street that had belonged to the people but was now claimed by the demons of the night.  It was a street that had once held trade, mothers, children, life.  It was a street that had once promised a community a safe haven but now offered nothing but bloodshed.  I walked, I walked down the street with my head held high!  My trainers splashing in the puddles and kicking old newspapers, cans and the odd syringe.  Cigarette buts scattered everywhere along the edges of bloodstained cobbled streets.  I walked.  

I owned the night and the streets within it; all was my domain.  For in it I have found my family, they who took me in.  In it I have found the darkness to be soothing, the dirt to be cleansing and the shadows clear to see.  In it I can hide my fears and keep my tears from falling, in this darkness of the night.  And there you are, looking back at me, from your window, behind your curtains, don't think I can't see, because I can!  Look on, look on, mother, it's only me!

  For there was a time you ought to have looked, only that time has long passed; when I needed you mother, when I called out to you!

There was a time when you should have seen, instead you were too busy, busy finding love in endless men who came and went like ships in the night!

Men who loved you, drugged you, took your money and then beat you!  Men who hurt you until you obeyed their every whim!  Men who kept you a prisoner within the murky waters of their own self destruction!  Who made you believe that you were nobody without them, and had you begging, pleading for mercy!  

Men who tortured you with drugs and booze!

Men who belittled you and made you choose; they made you choose what a mother should never be asked to choose, they made you choose between them and me!

Who looked longingly up the stairs to where my room was and dreamt of sordid deeds!

And where were you?  Where were you when I called out to you?  When I hid under the bed and coward amongst old trainers and dusty socks?  Where were you when I could hear their footsteps upon my bedroom floor, or when they crouched down and peered at me as I shivered with fear?  You were getting high!  I prayed and prayed, but you were getting high!

But I was meant to be your baby!

So I started hanging out in the street where it was safe, with all the other kids that felt it was unsafe to stay home!

And we took refuge with each other and started looking out for each other, soon we became a family.  But where were you?  Where were you mother if not in the bed of some loser or in the arms of a bloke from down the pub?  Ah yes, you were in bed with a needle and well loved up by the effects of the drug!  

And when I stayed out late or got into trouble, you never bothered to ask me why.  When I came in late did you bother to ask if I was hungry?  And when social services came knocking at your door, it was me who had to clean up your mess, open some windows and pretend that we were happy families.  I even put flowers in a vase, all so that social services wouldn't take me away!

I was all alone and all you had was me!  What a burden to put on someone so young.  But You clung on, and so I clung on, in the hope that one day you might return to me; the mother you should have been.  For I was your child, I was your child...

And I clung on to you and I prayed and I hoped and I begged God for your return.  But you did not return.  So I went to find some love.  Down lonely streets and deserted alleyways.  In the arms of a gang that called me Bro, and made me feel wanted.

But I kept coming back, kept begging you for love, but you were too busy looking down a bottle or shooting up to take much notice of me.  You were too busy loving men who could never love you instead of loving the one person who could - me.  

I cried for you; bitter, salty tears.  I cried for you and all you did was stare down that bottle and curl your lip up at me.  I walked the streets crying for you.  Kicking up puddles and longing for you!  Wishing I was someone else, wishing you were dead!

But then something happened; it rained.

And then it rained...

And then it rained!

And it rained symbolically on my life and I knew...I knew then who I was meant to be!  I knew clearly; I could see myself, I could hear my name being called out as the wind carried it across the land!  I knew, I knew who I was!

I was not your child; I was a child of the wind, I was a child of the earth, I was a child of the rain!  I was never yours, never theirs, never belonged to any of your men!  I was a child of earth.  So I set myself free; by being me and not what everyone else expected me to be!

And now as I walk down that old familiar cobbled street, and look up and see your curtains twitching.  Now as I kick the puddles and take in the cold air through my nostrils, I smile.  I smile and my smile turns to laughter as I look up at the rain and let it drench me!  For blessed be the rain sent down from the skies.  I found myself the day it rained.