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Fiction Short Story

by Craig Murray

On The Right Road

He stood, staring out the rain-streaked window; his reflection seemed to weep as rivulets of oily rain trickled across the glass.  Water in the street collected into traps for the unwary, soaking pant legs and shoes of those oblivious of the potholes that waited for them.  The world had gone a deep blue-grey of threatening clouds and angry wind whipped trees.  Their branches reached out, imploring the storm god's forgiveness, supplications to save their few remaining fall leaves.

Without turning, he took another drink from the thin foam cup balanced on the window ledge. Grimacing, he swallowed the last few drops of cold, bitter coffee and dropped the cup onto the table beside him. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed their annoying angry tune and cast a light that left everyone off-colored, sickly tinted.

A need to cry, a clawing desire to scream boiled up within him, he wanted to run into the downpour and lose himself in the storm's wrath.  He longed to fall to the earth, dead, consumed, pierced by the roots of trees and forgotten for eternity.  He wanted to die.

The café held all the allure of an outdated and rarely cleaned laundromat.  White formica tables, their steel edging bent and broken, sat seemingly scattered around the room.  Matching white chairs that had been old and out of style twenty years ago supported the few tired remains of those also trapped by the rain. 

His stiff fingers fumbled and fought their way into his jacket pocket until finally they found their prey.  Taking a cigarette from the pack, he quickly lit it and sucked the acrid smoke deep into his lungs.  It was his one savior and enemy rolled into a thin tobacco-stuffed paper tube.

Sighing, he dropped onto the chair he had recently vacated and stretched out in a show of artificial nonchalance.  He gazed about the room with feigned disinterest. 'Six people,' he thought. 'Six and myself, lucky seven.  That's us, the lucky seven trapped in this shithole, waiting for the rain to stop.'

He had the urge to slide under the table to the waiting floor and see if anyone noticed.  He wanted to collapse onto the floor and fade, just fade away until all that was left was a crumpled empty package of cigarettes.  He wished to drop and drop and drop again, an eternity of falling away.

He cursed under his breath as he spotted the broken gray trail of ash on his shirt.  There, trapped in a fold of fabric, lay the escapee, the mongrel dog that stained his front.  A half-inch of ash had fallen like some silent boulder, crashing down his shirt and leaving its rubble behind.  He moved his hand to swat it away but stopped short of making that mistake.  Unzipping his jacket the last few inches, he held it open and blew down his front.  The boulder of ash, dislodged by the hurricane from his lips, leapt forward only to crash one last time against his ankle before exploding on the floor.

A few more puffs and the errant reminders of his carelessness were blown off to mix with the general dirt that clung to every surface.  Turning to retrieve his cigarette from the tin ashtray, he cursed again as he realized it had gone out.  His need unrequited because of the distraction, he drew out another and lit it to chase the first.

He stared out beyond the glass, out into that darkened, soaked world.  What lay beyond that curve and over that hill?  He looked upwards into the massive blanket of angry, rolling clouds and for the first time in his life saw something new.

The cloud was no longer just a local aberration, an insult to his day, an affront to his being.  The cloud was a traveler.  It collected water from far off places and distant lands. Tiny droplets, evaporated over the shifting sands of the Sahara, mixed together with lush, green, tropical rains.  City children laughed in this rain and country gentlemen thanked the creator for it.

'The rain is not my enemy,' he thought.  It’s more than the maker of mud and the stopper of traffic.  The rain is a messenger, a cleaner, a sound. The rain is a note sung in perfect clarity if only one has the ears to hear it. Stick your tongue out and catch a drop of rain and you are tasting the world and all her places.  Stand naked in the rain and be washed by a thousand hidden streams and gleaming silver currents.'

The barest of smiles crept along the corners of his mouth and his hand reached tentatively towards the glass as he thought 'Laugh in the rain and share your laughter with every child who has ever lived.  Cry in the rain and she washes your face and takes the tears as her own.'

Now he felt the first tears build in the corner of his eyes; that rare, stinging sensation that he had not felt since he was a child.  He started to fight it off, force them back, when he suddenly changed his mind.

A smile flashed across his face even as the tears continued to build.  A new awareness evaded his thinking. It had been painfully obvious for all these years.  He’d viewed life as a series of miseries interspersed with occasional happiness.  But that wasn’t the case. Joy existed constantly if only one could see beyond the rain.  Rising, he pushed the door open and stepped out into the downpour.  He did not know where he was going, but at least he was on the right road again.


About the Author
Craig Murray’s fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous online and print publications, and was nominated for a Pushcart in 2004. When Craig is not writing, he is the Architectural Designer for a Conservation Authority as well as an Officer in the Canadian Forces (Reserves). His first novel, The Banshee, is being released later this year soon followed by his second, The Forgotten Man.