Fic: Nothing but the Rain
Title: Nothing but the Rain
Author: afrakaday
womenverse Challenge No. 8, “Rainy Days”
Word count: 346
I can’t hear much of the world outside, here in this facsimile of my old apartment on Caprica, but when it rains--and it rains on this frakkin’ planet a lot--the place feels a little less fake.
What do you hear, Starbuck?
Nothing but the rain.
Space rain, the sound of the nothingness of space slipping past the hull of a ship. Ascribing peculiar noises to external events other than enemy attacks grounds us pilots in a good way, you know?
The rain outside is the real thing. Droplets of water against slate roof--or whatever this place is made of.
It’s comforting, but it can also take me back to a place I’d wanted to forget long before the Cylons nuked it to hell.
I look around me; the handlike leaves of the trees in the park are turning inside-out, a warning confirming what the dark clouds overhead have already told me.
I don’t want to go home. Socrata is angry, told me to get out. I like it here at the park.
Usually I can find some kids to play with. But the last ones left at least twenty minutes ago, the mom loading the little kids into a wide double stroller and the two older ones walking alongside.
My skin prickles as the wind picks up. I wrap my jacket around me tight and begin to walk home, torn between running from the storm and dawdling toward that unhappy place.
When I get there the door’s been deadbolted from the inside. I know my key won’t work, but I try anyway.
A clap of thunder sounds nearby, startling me into dropping my key. I don’t even think about banging on the door.
My small body slides easily under the rotting wood of the front stoop, where I wait out the storm with the spiders and try not to cry when the lightning illuminates the dirt streaks across my pink windbreaker and the sinuous threads covering concrete slabs.
Even this is better than inside with her.
Even that was better than this.
Author: afrakaday
womenverse Challenge No. 8, “Rainy Days”
Word count: 346
I can’t hear much of the world outside, here in this facsimile of my old apartment on Caprica, but when it rains--and it rains on this frakkin’ planet a lot--the place feels a little less fake.
What do you hear, Starbuck?
Nothing but the rain.
Space rain, the sound of the nothingness of space slipping past the hull of a ship. Ascribing peculiar noises to external events other than enemy attacks grounds us pilots in a good way, you know?
The rain outside is the real thing. Droplets of water against slate roof--or whatever this place is made of.
It’s comforting, but it can also take me back to a place I’d wanted to forget long before the Cylons nuked it to hell.
I look around me; the handlike leaves of the trees in the park are turning inside-out, a warning confirming what the dark clouds overhead have already told me.
I don’t want to go home. Socrata is angry, told me to get out. I like it here at the park.
Usually I can find some kids to play with. But the last ones left at least twenty minutes ago, the mom loading the little kids into a wide double stroller and the two older ones walking alongside.
My skin prickles as the wind picks up. I wrap my jacket around me tight and begin to walk home, torn between running from the storm and dawdling toward that unhappy place.
When I get there the door’s been deadbolted from the inside. I know my key won’t work, but I try anyway.
A clap of thunder sounds nearby, startling me into dropping my key. I don’t even think about banging on the door.
My small body slides easily under the rotting wood of the front stoop, where I wait out the storm with the spiders and try not to cry when the lightning illuminates the dirt streaks across my pink windbreaker and the sinuous threads covering concrete slabs.
Even this is better than inside with her.
Even that was better than this.