8. Rain Shadow

Note: Took a long time to finish this chapter. Apart from the tougher, more packed college timetable, there have been a few unplanned obstacles, such as my interests in short stories, a serious lack of ideas and personal problems which have crippled my time here and there. If the chapter looks rushed and slipshod, you have my apologies; the change in writing style halfway through tells the time when I stopped writing, and then returned with something which I thought has only been unique to my poetry. The plot, wears thin sometimes, but as long as I start the next chapter, I should be aiming for nothing less than completion.
I find it hard to be in any way attached to this story, but sometimes I wish I could, so I could do a better job. I used to drift through all the diction I used last year when I was writing 'Junkie', but now it's become a sort of struggle to keep both mood and plot running strong. I'll be conscientiously doing the story – and finishing up all my weekly tutorials as well. Don't expect much after March 22 though: that's the day I'm getting my final posting. And if I do stay in ACJC, then the workload is set to increase tenfold. But, as someone has pointed out, somehow I just manage to get things done.

The fair, wasting away its hours by the days, soon ebbs into a cycle of rituals. At the beginning of each day I endure the rigid schedule of a moneychanger, checking the accounts of all ledgers and journals, and setting income and expenditure records to the basis, before setting out for the next day's business, balanced by a leather pouch of our earnings that Father forbids me to abandon. At the day's end, I ensure my writings and untidy scrawls can later be figured in the total calculation, to which Father still entrusts only to himself. I begin the day with scrutiny of my work, and end it the same way. Everything else in between is a flash of alien faces, and a memory for safekeeping.

                I count the days since our performance; one becomes two, and three turns into seven. The music festival concludes after eleven days, and everywhere I see alien musicians playing hopefully on the streets instead. Their presence, like the hundreds of street-sellers, is balanced by a fixed level of tolerance by the thronging crowd, whose numbers have yet to falter three weeks' on. Father treats them with an attitude halfway between ignorance and pity.

                Yet on the day when my count extends to eighteen, I can still hear my guitar in the morning, crooked against my chest, sweaty in my arms. The music, though long buried with the night, I have dreams of resurrecting soon enough. Like a phantom, it manifests itself all around me: Iain humming a tune, Mr. Niel's browsing through human music at a store and the constant temptation to play my guitar when I am not entertaining customers.

                During the lengthened afternoon, two things of remote significance come to pass. First, Father and Mr. Niel consensually agree that our work at the fair is over. The pledges sold, and running on two weeks' worth of moneychanging, Father announces to the others the profit I have earlier ascertained. The fair will go on, of course, until trading dwindles to a pale shadow of our first day; yet, even we must agree when enough is satisfactory. Father shows approval at our profits. I am still running on the glow of the concert.  

                On that same afternoon, a raw west wind enters the dusty alleys to our Zechaat quarter. With burnt-out ends of lights remaining and the crisp creak of dead leaves filling the less-crowded roads, the wind forces traders to seek shelter in the dry, cracked pavements underneath buildings. The crowd decreases to scattered groups of buyers; the gutsy, hardened wind is followed by a blast of sunshine all afternoon, leaving everything in a shade of monochrome.

                At dusk, the sun is driven out by thick, dark clouds, not checked in size by the nagging wind blowing below. Within an hour, as I begin to close the accounts for the day, lightning scatters all bystanders. The wind diminishes, while dented streetlamps fail to pierce the murk of the evening, marked with an overcast sky. I stare at my human neighbour in the adjacent stall, busy filling his tins with currency.

                "Ill weather tonight?" I ask.

                "No, just the rain."

                At the end of my shift, when the only crowd which remains loiters in the trading hall, the rain begins the night. It starts with a soft whispering; acrid drops of wet liquid falling onto the panes outside. Then it reverses into a rhythm, allowed by the presence of slight wind. Finally, it breaks, and paints everything in Zechaat a tainted, blackened hue. As I step out into the open porch of the hall that same evening, a curtain of rain obscures everything, and with encroaching attempts, seeks to drown me in its bitter foam.

The following day dawns cold and heavy, with the stained drops of the night's thunderstorm. Throngs coming to the fair have become no more than stringy groups of customers; the magic of the fair has been worn away, washed out by the rain, which continues in a persistent drizzle. Iain and Vanessa have gone to aid, Mr. Niel in loading his purchases and our musical instruments into the craft, leaving me alone at the stall. 

                Several of the traders have left; there is nothing left in Zechaat but rain now. I scribble aimlessly on an empty page of the ledger, the last entry two days ago. All the unoccupied traders are listening, watching, a musician's movements outside the adjacent glass panel. I can hear his tune, playing softly like a worthy remembrance on a wind instrument. He is wet with rain and sweat, though his audience is but those he cannot see behind the panel he slouches on.

                Father is absent, so I listen. My human counterparts in the nearby stalls also watch him, and his charming antics, the fingers of his four hands trembling as they progress up and down his flute. I cannot make out the melody clearly, since the soft patter of the rain interrupts it. My own thoughts manage to overcome me though, for the next image I see is that of my human neighbour calling my name.

                "Iris!"

                I turn to the direction of the musician. He has already left, but the rain continues. My human neighbour nods his head in the direction of the mirrored blackness outside, where I notice, in a distance, the gathering of a mass of bodies, in the rain. A vague, gruff voice is yelling; amidst the ebbs of an echo silenced by the paneled glass, a vein of lightning shards his muted words.

                "What's going on?" I ask.

                "Something definitely," he replies. My eyes fall on a bludgeon in his hand.

                The trade hall is quiet, apart from the idle drip, drip of a leak somewhere and the rabble silently proceeding outside. My neighbour seizes my right hand quickly; his face almost pale and says in a terrible façade of unconcern, "I'm going out. Are you coming or staying?"

                "What's with you?" I say, wrenching my wrist out of his grip. "I'll come, and I can take care of myself, thank you."    

                "If you wish," he releases his grasp but the concealed unease in his voice is plastered all over his face.

I dare not remove my eyes from the growing black mass congregating outside. I stare, through the wide glass panels, until my gaze gets strained by the blurry, frosted images. Before we exit the hall, he drapes a windbreaker over me; I return him a stare. He doesn't look back. The cold touches me now, sharp and piercing on my cheeks; I pull the windbreaker to my neck, then put don the hood. I do not want to be recognised in this foul air.

                The voice is clearer outside, unable to be suppressed by the heavy rain. The grey sky's shadows, put into focus by the shaky air on the streets, splash down the sides of the hall and over us. We approach the crowd with caution, water running through our paces and deadening our every move.               

                The mist hinders my vision of the crowd as I advance. Someone, an alien most likely, is standing in the thick of the gathering, raised, his voice towering over everyone else. My neighbour, ignoring streams of water carve valleys down his face, advances slightly; I follow, until we are almost touching the backs of the crowd.            

                The alien speaks, with a distinct Zechaat accent, and I tremble beneath his sinister strength.

                "Yes, my brethren, they have returned! There is no question about it, they have come to seek out the remnants and to completely destroy them! And in the wake of their shadow lies Solbrecht, the centre of commerce, their conquest to seek, to loot, to destroy… incomplete lest they touch us!"

                I know what he is screaming about. The crowd mutters slightly, moving as one, single body. Many grunt, growl in low undertones and roar – in silence. I clutch the lapel of my windbreaker in a vice grip; a heavy, thick feeling saturates the damp air around me, tearing against my exposed face with burning claws. A feeling which I have not felt since the day… the ambush in the alleyways of Zyjushem.

                The pervading air falls on my shoulders, a burden, heavy with deadly foreboding.

                "The Drej overrun! And there is no escape. They've thrashed D'Armaran fleets and Rutani fighters in their rage! I have seen it, with my own eyes; eyes granted permission to see another portent, to give the sight of my fear, my horror, to you, inhabitants of Zechaat. I have seen the blast of swift silence, tear apart metal and hull! I have seen the blue lightning rip people from their legs and dismember them from their blood!"

                The crowd moans, afraid and jilted.                 

                "Piteous spectacle!" one cries out.

                "What shall we do?"

                The alien pauses, but I see the rage pulsing through his limbs. "I came back, not to memorize another Earth, but to warn you of those of Earth…"

                My blood freezes, and the cold of the rain stabs, drop by drop, into my heart.

                "… Are they worth our friendship, these dregs of the ground, these humans? We are a common people here in Zechaat, but how much are we willing to pay for their presence in our midst? What are they, what offal… are they our friends, or do we consider them a tattoo, a black mark upon our heads and our future? One that the Drej can see?"

                Lightning bursts through the shadowed sky. The light cleaves onto the ground and ripples past the speakers face: I catch a glimpse of his impervious mien.

"Humans!" someone bellows.

                "Curses!"

                I want to run, but my feet are in the rain, unable to move, clinging to the ground with dread and alarm. Sweat replaces the rain in on my hands, as waves of rage shock through the crowd, ablaze with fury.        

                "I do not know your principles, my friends," the alien says, muting his voice to a hissing murmur, "but I do know the Drej's. I fear them as much as you do, but some, with their mystic designs, provoke them to terrible anger. And the Drej's anger is extinction, a blast of energy, into a void of emptiness…"  

                "Are you saying that humans…?"questions a voice from the other end of the crowd.

                "No, my brother," he reproaches the interruption, "they are not our enemies. They are our fellow inhabitants, with as much right to the seed of Solbrecht as all of us," the disturbance of noises intensifies, "but, remember, they are the Drej's enemies. And they exist to oppose them."

                "So get rid of them!" another calls, the malice in his voice carries over to me easily.

                "Let me not stir you to a riot," the alien reproves the violence welling within the crowd again, and it responds, uneasy and brittle with provoked fury. "Who are we to think that we deserve being spared the Drej's torment, when we have invited humans to the fairs and bought their trade? Who are we to think that we are not the guilty ones? We, who have tolerated them for all these years, embraced them as brothers. The humans are not our enemies. We are! For being their friends!" 

                I back away; the words of silent anger breathe in, and possess the crowd, occupying them in their unknowing helplessness. I summon the courage, to pull myself free from the unseen grip of the crowd, but the alien's speech reaches its climax…

                "And WE are our own enemies! And WE are the ones who will pay the price, the ultimate warrant, for being the friend of a human! If I were part of the Drej race, I would DIG out every human from among you and KILL every human in your midst until the RAIN ran with their coloured BLOOD…"

                The wrath boiling within explodes, and converts the listening crowd into a mob. I catch only a glance, as masses of bodies swarm at me, rushing me over… and then aside by their thrust. The mob tosses me out of their path, and I fall, my hands failing to catch me, instead crumpling from the fall. The rain, and then the mob overlaps my fallen figure. Blind with anger, the strength of a thousand feet press on my outstretched left foot, attempting to concentrate itself at a point to the extreme left of my vision. When the pain subsides, I withdraw my foot, swollen with numbness. Writhing in my own misery, I don't realise my friend is missing.

                Aflame in ferocity, the mob crashes into the hall, wrecking windows, spilling over onto the nearby streets, attacking anything human and leaving rubble and red in its wake.

                "Human! There's a human!" they yell, and smother him with their numbers, "their stalls… look! Their stalls… and another there! You! Over there! That's a human stall too! Get him! There's another… and get the human before he hides!"

                The gruesome noises replay themselves in my mind. I try to stand, but the throbbing, sharp pain pulls me back down. The windbreaker saved me; they couldn't see my face. And now I feel the rain, generous drops splattering over my hair, wet to the centre, flung down from my face as I struggle even to breathe. 

                My eyes fall upon a bludgeon, snapped into two, awash in a shade of light crimson.

                I do not turn my eyes over to the source of the crimson; the rain, indifferent, pours ceaselessly, and drains the foul deeds in pools and running streams. I stagger, my weight throwing my wounded foot off balance. The shrieking of the mob (or is it someone else's?) persists, in the streets – and somewhere deep inside my mind.

                I feel like I have awakened from a deep sleep. My eyes, bear the brunt of the shaded glaze of grey the rain and the mob brings. Someone shouts, from somewhere ahead. Reeling, I cannot tear my eyes off the ruin at every corner of the once composed streets of Zechaat. The hall's glassy sides are irregular shreds of torn glass; a preoccupied fire guts the entrance, where a limp stretch of flesh hangs loosely from the wall. Stalls have been overturned, their contents trailing off in the rain, and poles contorted by hatred into snares of iron. 

                I lurch in disgust, sickness at the sight of a piece of human in the puddles.

                In the midst of the sea of rain, I fall, the burden on my back breaking my shoulders. Fat, wet drops of rain dash against my face. The lurching, sickness takes me in seconds, rolling over my throat in waves. Bending over at the edge of a clear puddle, I notice myself, complete to every last detail, and then it shatters, as the nauseating pulse comes spluttering, choking from my froth-corrupted throat…

                I look in the puddle again. This time I see the damage behind me: a flaking flame and a ripped shred of a stall awning. Again I see myself – the foamy bile I have thrown forth now obscures it, my face being dragged into dilution… I am trying not to cry, but I cannot help the dulled sobs… my arms flex, and I feel my a part of my face touching the cool water, the other receiving the battering, ceaseless rain…  

                The darkness curls me like my own shadow. With a blind wave it exposes the sand at the bed of a glassy sea; then with one final wave, it undercuts everything.

Someone hammers away the darkness.

                Tearing black from my eyes, I glance upon vision, a brief momentary sight spread out over me.

                The rain has ended. The puddles crater the street like the surface of a dimpled face; across all I can see is ruin. But there are no flames. The soak of the former rain persists. Clouded, I make out people, sauntering amongst the debris. One seems to be getting larger, a smudge in my vision, inflating. 

                It draws near, and I can recognise its sweet, feminine breath.

 Someone hammers away the darkness.

                In its place, patches of fine, absolute white light stream into view. First they confine it to the holes of my eyes which are the windows to the world; then, the hammering resumes, breaking away the crust of rigid black like flakes off a crisp piece of meat. I gaze upward, coming to realise I am not stranded in the middle of the road anymore. Instead, there is a room, with light. Stuffy but I feel comfortable enough to think I'm back in my bedroom, at home, in Zyjushem.

                All that feels as if it has already taken place, a long time ago – to somebody else.

                Trying to sit up, I draw a shaky, ragged breath. As the black encrusting my eyes falls away in strips, I see Vanessa and Iain first; then my vision sharpens, and I notice Father and Mr. Niel, in the backdrop of smudged walls and broken furniture. My eyes opening fully, Iain rises to his feet, and with a watery, incoherent sound speaks. My ears dull it, but my mind regains its strength and before he even reaches my bedside, I throw myself into his arms.

                "Iris," he breathes, soft and warm against my cheek, like nothing I have never felt before! "Iris. When Vanessa saw you in that puddle soaked in blood we thought…"

                I stare at him. "But I wasn't bleeding," I say.

                He takes hold of my right hand, and directs it to my tight, larger than usual through my slacks. Now only, do I notice the plaster around it, caking the wound which had been crushed during my brief encounter with the mob.

                "They said the bone had pierced the skin," Iain says, gazing at me. "But it's good to have you back, Iris."

                But Iain parts from me. Father, his face sullen and loose, confronts me. He takes my face in his hands; like a child, from a vague memory, I remember the touch, warm and secure, flowing through his rough hands onto my face. My eyes are humble; I have never looked Father in the eye often. Yet with a finger he brushes a stray lock from my fringe.

                "Oh Iris, how I wish I could've taken your place for all the things you would have seen," he speaks, heavily hung in regret, a tone I hate to hear. When he speaks like this, he is almost defeated. "How I wish…"      

                "It's too late to wish, Father," I tell him, one of my fists clenched. "Now am I just thankful that I am alive."

Iain says the streets of Zechaat, for that one-hour, had turned into a hell.

                "I was at the docks when everything broke out," he recalls, "where we barricaded ourselves in. We had heard of the killing, so many, even the other races, were afraid to venture out of the centre. So your Father and I just waited it out, until the officers came and told us to get back because there was going to be a curfew."

                "How about Vanessa?" I ask, my voice woozy with tiredness.

                "One of D'Armaran traders hid her, just as the mob sacked the centre. But she said she heard the shrieking and the horrible sounds. The same trader led us to this haven, where he told the keeper he'd pay for all our lodgings. But your Father insisted otherwise, and replenished him for all his trouble. But we were worried sick about you. Once they lifted the curfew, we went searching."

                Feeling weary with fatigue and shock at everything, I can only stare at the ceiling of my little room as Iain leaves. Father says we will be leaving in the morning, because the authorities cannot guarantee our safety anymore. The fair, has been cut short brutally, and everything else left in shambles.

                At the unusual sense of insecurity permeating everything, I can only feel with a mind slightly numb from the foul air. Sometimes I get that nauseous ache again; fresh from my thoughts, I wonder if all those faces I recollect setting my eyes upon during the performance have escaped unscathed. Talk about guitars, some creaky musical score continues to echo in my head.

                Is it one of the songs I have played? I cannot tell: something clouds it. So I decide to mutter them aloud.

                "There's a peace inside us all," I say.

                Through the dimming light of the long night outside, I rest from the world.

Written by shelter