Oblivious
Is Kredit to Team!!
- Local time
- Today 10:09 PM
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2008
- Messages
- 1,266
- Location
- Purgatory with the cool kids
Written on a rainy day.
It is a wet, cloudy day on a lazy Saturday afternoon. The entire sky, swallowed by cloud, is a morose shade of grey with the ever so occasional streak of brilliant lightning. Unsatisfied with its conquest of the sky itself, the clouds' children, the mist, engulfs the various skyscrapers forming the city skyline in the distance, dulling their hues and blurring their form. Today is the day of the clouds, bringing new life and vigour to the world. Rain rejoiced in it in a time long gone.
The reign of the clouds sees the rain of the end, the ending of a cycle... like death. From their throne in the heavens, the clouds send their storms, armies of water droplets, showering down upon the sleepy town. Along a muddy roadside in the town of Brightmorning, a young man of twenty one, Rain Orwell, trudges along, the weight of a plastic grocery bag digging into his hand, and an infinitely heavier burden weighing on his heart. His head is bowed, water from his soaked fringe of sable drip before his watered eyes of the same darkness, flowing down his tanned cheeks. One might say he seemed aged, far beyond his years. Was it the way his fathomlessly dark eyes would peer tiredly from behind locks of twilight, relaxed, not in a tranquil manner, but in resignation? Or maybe it is his frown. As lazy as his gaze, it was permanently etched into his forehead, as if contemplating the next calamity that would strike him. He is soaked through his denim jacket to his sky grey tee to his blue, blue jeans, reminiscent of a time long faded away, down to his trainers.
Rain took a deep breath of the divinely refreshing air as he passed by a row of old and rickety tenements, the old neighbourhood. It was as if he was breathing in the essence of nature itself. The houses were dirty white, cracks of woody brown snaking across the surfaces, rivalled only by the green ivy that had taken hold. Their windows were dark and empty, though Rain could sometimes see ghosts of the past within their shadowy depths. These houses, though owned in name, were all but abandoned, their owners gone in search of a better life in the city. Rain only stayed on since he was the only qualified doctor in miles. He would have shuddered to imagine what would happen to the old folk and the children if he left... however, all he could feel was the ineffable void nicking away at his very soul. Then, within the reverie of memories long faded away, Rain could hear a tiny cry, alien to the constant pitter patter of the rain. It sounded like a newborn, shrill and weak, almost like the squeaking of a Wellington boot.
Looking around, Rain sees a small, shivering lump of wet fur, camouflaged against the greyness of the world. It was grey, striped with black, a Siamese, and blended almost perfectly with the grey wooden fence behind it. It had two pointed ears and huge eyes of black, staring into space with sorrow. The kitten mews pathetically again, and looks up to behold the giant that is blocking the meagre light that filtered in through the heavy clouds.
"You remind me of myself..." are the words going through Rain's mind as he stares into its sable eyes. "...That girl always loved little critters like these."
He stares at the diminutive creature. Stray cats would usually flee when in such close proximity to human, but this one did not. It was probably separated from its mother, and lost itself in the rain. The young man kneels on one knee beside the kitten, picks it up by the nape of its neck with his free hand, places it within the confines of his jacket, and cradles it with his arm. It feels icy cold against his chest.
"Why in God's name am I doing this...?"
There is a moment of mental silence when Rain simply continues on his journey home, the rain showering down in his head, his trainers squelching in the mud, unknowing of his heart's subtle easing...
"For her?"
Rain arrives at his clinic, which doubled up as his house. It is a white, single story building at the end of the street, the warm glow of an incandescent lamp is emanating from the back. Is it another patient? Its walls are in similar disrepair, though Rain had done his best, with little result, to combat the ivy that had beset most of the other houses. He goes round the back to the windowed backdoor of his house, which would bring him into the kitchen. As he steps out of his shoes, he noted the pair of pale yellow straw sandals lying on the black rubber wire shoe rug. So Miss Gray was here already. He pushes open the door with the heavy creaking he had painstakingly engineered long ago. He enters, noting idly that the lights were already on, and the place seemed neater than he had left it. The sink is void of dirty dishes, tins of coffee, cream or sugar are back in the cupboards, spills are wiped up.
Placing the groceries on a coffee table, Rain lifts his tiny charge out of his jacket and holds it in front of his face. The tiny feline stares piteously at him with its oversized eyes, a mew escaping its tiny mouth. It's emaciated figure was shivering, its grey fur dishevelled.
"I would give you a bath, but I think you've had your fill of water hmm?"
Just then, there was a tiny gasp, followed by the sound of a shattering vase. Rain's gaze lazily pans left to observe the source of the noise. Amidst the wreckage of a fallen flower vase, standing there at a hundred and sixty seven centimetres, is a slight girl with waist long, hazel brown hair and dark green eyes, Miss Freya Gray. Having lived for seventeen years in this semi ghost town, all her life, Freya was one of the few youth mature, or boring, enough to live the quiet and peaceful life in the country side, remaining behind as to take care of her younger brother and elderly grandmother. She also worked here as a nurse. The clothes she wears were of her own choosing, a white shirt emblazoned with the black outline of a stegosaur with the word 'Gao' stamped below it, and a pitch black pleated skirt. Rain observed her to be a calm and reserved individual, very much like himself. However, she was the kind who would choose her words carefully, and speak eloquently, while Rain simply spoke as he wished. If he ever did.
"Oh! I apologize, Dr Orwell..." says Freya in a hushed, controlled voice, masterfully disguising her surprise and panic. With her flushed face hanging low, she is like a little girl who had been caught misbehaving, only that she is the quiet, innocent type you can't bear to punish.
"I never liked that pot." stated Rain in a faraway voice, his hand still hoisting up the little kitten, who glances once at the broken vase and then continues staring at Rain. "It was too... colourful." he comments, noting the bright colours of its shattered fragments, colours that were mindlessly splashed all over the vase without rhyme or reason. He had never paid much mind to the overly cheerful, since there was no sense ignoring the brutal realities of this world.
He places the kitten in a towel on the kitchen counter and squats down to reach one of the lower drawers. Pulling it open, he found his trusty blow dyer, perfect for a rainy day like this. He plugs it into a nearby power socket and proceeds to blast the kitten with hot air. A shocked, but muffled, mew escapes the tiny orifice on its tiny head. It stand up, closing its overlarge eyes to the warm rushing gale as the frigid moisture is soon spirited away from its little furry body.
Freya, who had been absentmindedly observing Rain blow drying the kitten, blinks once, and then sets about cleaning the mess she had made. Before her was the man who had given her life meaning. Is this what Love, or lack thereof, can do to a person? Then... what of herself?
There is a tangible a silence between the two. Rain had finished blow drying the kitten, who was now resembling a lion, and is going about sorting his groceries into his refrigerator’s various compartments, while Freya is busy sweeping up the vase remnants into a dustpan. There was a time when such a silence would be considered out of place between the two, a time when the silence between the two was replaced by smiles and warm talk. Much has changed since that time, much lost.
Finished with his task, Rain retrieves a bottle of milk from the depths of his ice box. The glass bottle is icy cold to the touch, something that he knows his body did not need in the cold weather, something... his heart is apathetic to. Opening a cabinet above him, he spies stacks of dishes and saucers, neatly arranged and higher than when he had last left them... a sign that someone other than him exists, someone who was connected to him.
"How has Madam Gray been?" asks Rain offhandedly, referring to the elderly women in Freya's care.
Freya looks up from the floor and the shattered vase, if she were startled she hid it well, into Rain's back and after a moment's consideration says: "There have been no problems, though the recent weather hasn't been doing her any good... she might need your talents again soon."
There was another moment of silence, as Rain places a saucer before the kitten, pouring into it a measure of ice cold milk.
"Cats are lactose intolerant... like me and rain." He says cryptically, a trace of sadness in his voice.
"Doctor?"
"The Gift is lost to me." He states plainly.
"What do you mean...?"
"I am tired. Thank you for your help Miss Gray, take the rest of the day off."
With these words, Rain exits the kitchen, heading to his bedroom and study which lay just across the hall from the kitchen's exit.
Flashes of lightning illuminate the dark silhouette of Rain Orwell, seated in an armchair before a spacing between curtains of dark jade. Curtains that covered a large window that afforded a view of the forested valley below, beyond the wrought iron fencing. Raindrops are pattering incessantly upon the glass, like the applause of an adoring audience. A bookcase containing subjects on spiritualism and philosophy, and medical text from the days of his study, and a desk strewn with stationary and medical reference books lay adjacent to the window. Opposite this was a plain bed with white sheets and a small dresser of oak. Naturally, most of these were hidden away within the shadows of the clouds, visible only by the occasional strike of lightning.
Rain stares out towards the forest impassively, the practise of blinking forgotten to him. It had been raining in this manner for about a month already, a cruel parody of summer. The forest, being made out of deciduous trees, should be starting to die out any day now. Indeed, the pines strangling along the edges of the forest were starting to lose their greenery, like the skeletal frame of a man, half starved to death. Brightmorning was on no danger of flood, however, as it was built on high ground. As one familiar with this man could tell, though such people were mostly dead or nonexistent, Rain was smiling. Though there was not a trace of one on his face, the former would regard the relaxing of his eyebrows as sufficient, for it is within these moments one would notice the glow in his eyes. The only reason he held for smiling existed not in these dark days, but in the past... and that was exactly where he was.
