Hearing rain

She could always feel the rain before anyone else did. Here is her secret: not touching, but listening. A moment before the skies open, a subtle shift in pressure releases a small click. A shift in the world, a shift in her head. And then it rains and skin acknowledges what it was too slow to pick up, before eyes finally catch the little missiles streaking from the opening above. Then shuffling to get out the umbrella, to pull up the hood, save the hair and the clothes and the bag, before it must be incorporated, at last. Like the invisible air, the rain perforates.

Her ear is quicker than her hand, than her eye. The sky will open soon; she holds her breath, listening. Instead, she hears him coming. He opens the door behind her – she can just hear it shift the air, and the impending remonstrance for getting caught in the rain, for trying to catch the rain, echoes in her mind. Smiling to herself, she lets him approach, his unshod feet silent on the deck in the little backyard. He brings the warmth of the fire, the scent of sizzling bacon, the scratch of a woollen shirt with him, right up against her back. He inhales to speak, perhaps to startle her, certainly to scold, but she interrupts.

“I could hear.”

“Me, or the rain?”

“Both.”

She turns to find him, to confirm his presence with hands and eyes, to rush inside and save them both from the forthcoming rain.

He is gone.

She closes her eyes, hands raised to the sky, ready to embrace that emptiness instead. Click. It pours down, filling and emptying; she tries to catch him, precious silt in the slow sieve of her hands. He washes away.




Ashley Woodward

Malibu Barbie

Wirimu and Rita put their second and third fingers together, bring them to their lips.  They pretend to draw in their imaginary cigarette, enjoying the brief moment as they exhale clouds of condensation into the cold air of the bedroom they share. 

Moisture steadily runs down the inside of the windowpane and Wirimu senses it’s going to be another chilly morning before he even looks outside.  Rita snuggles in amongst her posse of now out-of-fashion soft toys and dolls that have long been forgotten about by the girls whose parents live in areas with high fences and who drive cars with fancy sounding Italian names. 

Rita’s favourite doll is Beach Barbie even if the left side of her face has all the hallmarks of being tortured by a cigarette lighter, her face slightly drooping as if she has had a stroke.  The other side of her mouth though remains in permanent grin as if it’s the first day of summer and she has just received the first kiss from Ken.  Mum won’t be up ‘til at least 10.30 and already Wirimu is preparing to get up to make breakfast for his younger sister.  This time the party was at their house with each person bringing a single bottle with labels he didn’t recognise, unlike the usual discount beer or R.T.Ds that were the drink normally favoured by their mother. 

“Hey squirt, I’m really sorry I can’t afford to buy a proper birthday present” he says to Rita, who is busy styling Barbie’s hair into a ponytail, “but Mum said school fees took all her spare cash and she’s got no money for pocket money this week”

“That’s okay Wiz” she replies, then adds, “does that mean I have to buy you one next time?”

“Of course, but you’re not going home completely empty-handed Rita,” he says in his best quiz show compere’s voice.  He reaches into his pocket and brings out in the palm of his hand a tiny stick with a folded paper surround that he had found discarded in a glass when he went to see what had gone on the night before after waking for an early morning pee.   It is not immediately apparent to her what it is until he pushes up the middle of the stick and the paper becomes a bright aqua-coloured umbrella. 

“It’s not for you though,” he says, “it’s for her,” and he pushes the stick straight into the hole made for Barbie to originally hold her camera. 

“Wow, that’s so cool Wiz’, I think she’ll need it today,” as sunlight just enters the room. 

It feels warmer already.

Andrew Hawkey

Umbrella-ing

Most stick with the old way: it rains – you put on a raincoat.

Runners hate the rain. Spend long enough with wet feet and when the nails fall off your toes they take lumps of soggy flesh with them. And raincoats collect sweat which leads to chaffing, rashes, seeping blood.

The new way is adopted by the best – they call it ‘umbrella-ing’. The best multi-day runners in the world do it: it rains – they run with an umbrella.

The rain has eased a little.

We sit for a while sheltered beside the path staring vacantly into the dark of night, lost in some benumbed, exhausted realm enlivened only by an awareness of pain. We have run 564 kilometres in the last 7 days.

The child is ebullient, bubbling with life – the clear, lucent life that only a small girl can live. The runner is old and shrunken. They talk as equals – she dancing about him, he seated stoically, bemused by the brief respite from ever-forward movement.

It is only when she wipes her half-sucked lollipop in his hair that he speaks to her as an adult to a child:

‘Don’t put it in my hair.’

‘Why?’

‘The ants will come into my hair.’

She carries on their conversation for a moment but then dances off, obviously piqued to be so thwarted.

‘Don’t leave me here alone. It’s my birthday,’ he calls to her retreating back. And all of lost, bereft humanity echoes in his voice – aeons of loss and loneliness, epochs of separation from love crying out across bleak and empty space towards the Beloved we have lost.

‘Don’t leave me here alone. It’s my birthday.’

I pull up the hood of my raincoat and lurch out into the rain.

Barnaby McBryde

Big Yellow Taxi

“Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you got til it’s gone…..”

she absent-mindedly hummed as she stared at the screen, mulling over the day’s lesson plans. For all intents and purposes it was just another day, so she didn’t pay too much attention to the Joni Mitchell song that randomly popped up from nowhere, though you would think she would have learned by now that almost always when that happened, it meant something.

“Bingo? Hang Man? Tic Tac Toe? What to do with the kids today,” she wondered, knowing her students needed a little activity to break up the day's Language Art Lesson.

Her phone beeped.

“Father has just passed away,” the message read.

Her fingers took over, instantly typing the reply:

“What?”

Then, that horrible gut gripping feeling that tells you long before you know, let alone accept it: the umbrella is gone.

There had never been anything clearer about that day she got the shocking news, four years ago. She had just never thought of him that way. Never thought about PEOPLE that way. Yet he was. And she only knew it when he was gone.

Yet to write about it, she realised as she sat down to try, was to sound cliché. Was to almost trivialise the event which exposed her forever more to the elements.  To try to describe an event many have lived through and already knew and felt, each in their own life-altering way, couldn’t and shouldn’t be done.

She made it through the school year and life went on, as it does. It continues to rain, it continues to shine, people continue to come and go and we return to routines.

But the umbrella somehow never comes back, does it.

Joni may have been right. But not anymore. 

Jasmin Webb

Equals

Headmaster Cid Leon was standing when she entered, watching the grounds through frameless glasses and the large window of his bright office. Shadows danced and flitted over his serious face, a cherry blossom outside being bothered by a breeze.

”Miss Paine, thank you for coming.” 

Selphie clasped his outstretched hand firmly. ”My pleasure. Thanks for your time.” 

He waved her to a seat. ”Please.”

She sat, and proceeded with her canned obligatory passion piece for students, their continued learning opportunities, and her desire to aid their successes as Dean of Admissions. 

Mr Leon looked pleased with her answers, she thought. But his eyes don’t sparkle with that decisive, ’hired’ intensity.

”There is one further question we prefer to ask candidates in person. I trust you were comfortable with our Equal Opportunity questionnaire during your application?”

Selphie folded her arms loosely. ”Sure.”

”Are you… or do you remain…” Cid leaned forward slightly, ”…your natural-born gender?”

Selphie was startled. ”Excuse me?” Do I take offense at that? I’m not sure, she thought. ”I’m a woman and always have been, if that’s what you’re asking me…”

”I see.” Cid was chewing his words. ”You have a strong application, but the board feels that, as an institution, we must do more to represent the transgender community on our payroll.” He laced his fingers together and smiled curtly. ”It’s much like what happened for ladies in the 2000s.”

Unbelievable. ”I’m not sure if women’s liberation fits under your umbrella of minority affirmative action, Mr Leon.” Selphie was seething. ”You’re suggesting that if I had once had a cock between my legs my skills might suddenly be more relevant?”

”It’s simply a matter of encouraging diversity.” Cid was unfazed by her candour.

”Funny line between diversity and discrimination.” Selphie stood. ”You’ll be hearing from me.”

Brendan McBryde