rainy days

The rains had been falling for a few days, and weren't showing any signs of letting up. The radio was saying we hadn't seen the worst of it yet, and the grocery stores had already been picked clean. Anyone who wanted to leave town already had, and everyone else was holing up at home, preparing for what I'm sure they thought was the end of days. The streets were deserted. Anyone who was still out was hurrying to shelter or hiding under raincoats and umbrellas. I went out in a light windbreaker and no hat, smiling up into the falling rain like an idiot. The streets may have been filling with water, but they were mine.

I walked to my girlfriend's house instead of driving, and by the time I got there I was soaked clear through, and she asked what the hell happened. I tried to tell her--in the rain everything is beautiful and I am king, but I couldn't shape the words right, she didn't understand. She told me I was an idiot, instead.

I told her it was freeing, cleansing, and she just asked me what was I going to do with this freedom? If I was king, what was the point of it? what could I rule? and of course I didn't have any answer, because there was none. So I said it made me smile, and she said it made me cold. And she was right there, too. I spent the night shivering and wrapped in blankets, trying to imagine some good that might have come of my brief reign over the city streets.