Glimpsing a Moment

The air was musty and light, it had just finished raining only moments before. The sun was finally finding small pathways through the dense clouds and speckling small parts of the ground around us. The air had cooled considerably due to the rains and a light fog could be seen in the trees in the distance. We were all sitting around a table silently waiting for someone to kick the conversation off, but no one seemed to want that honor.

“Strange weather we are having?” The person to the left of me finally ventured.

“Oh, I don’t know, seems to be par for the area,” I replied, “This time of year, one needs a jacket, an umbrella, shorts, pants, t-shirt, and long-sleeve shirt everywhere they go. The weather is a bit psychotic around here.”

“Yeah,” they responded back, “I hear it’s tornado season as well.”

I rolled my eyes and thought of all the high winds and loud sirens that would be ruining my spring days. It had already been a relatively extreme winter, and now it looked like we were heading into a spiteful spring. I have found that I’m easily weather affected and this was not looking good.

Quickly tiring of discussing the weather I explored other possibilities of conversation at the table and found myself drawn to the creature sitting across from me. She sat introverted with her eyes closely appraising her hands. She ran her index finger of her left hand around each digit on her right, slowly seeking up to each tip and down into each valley. When she would get to either her pinky or thumb, she would work back the way she had come. I found myself entranced by the movement; it looked soothing.

She looked up for the briefest of moments and our eyes connected. It must have been too much for her; she hastily averted her eyes back down to her hands. I found myself compelled to continue observing her. I wanted desperately to find something else to lay my attention on, but I couldn’t. She opened up her frame and looked back into my eyes, this time with more fervor. It may have only been for another short second, but we were locked into each other, time suspended.

Her eyes pleaded with me. They showed me depths I could only slightly understand, depths that have no words for describing, just a bunch feelings that make no sense together. I had an overwhelming sense of sadness impressed upon me. It was the kind of sadness you can only see in someone when you have known great loss.

She made an attempt at a smile, but her eyes betrayed her. It felt like looking into an infinite abyss, I could see my own sadness reflected back. I just stared wishing there was something I could do. Wishing we could really share our sadness and excise it somehow. She tried her smile again, but to no avail. In an instant the pause was lost, we both looked away and knew the moment would never come back. We knew that our sorrows would be our own to deal with.

-V-

Dry Spell (Part 1)

“NEWSFLASH!!! An important announcement will be broadcast on all stations in ten minutes…” it read across the bottom of the screen on my television set. I wasn’t paying too much attention until a loud beep started coming from the set. Whatever it was, it was not a test. So I sat patiently, waiting. The screen cleared and I was looking at the white house backdrop. Oh no, I thought to myself, we were finally in a full-scale war with one of the many countries our government has wronged along the way. Or possibly some fanatical group was crazily trying to make a name for themselves, or any other number of insane plots that would lead us down yet another abyss for our economy and lifestyle.

I waited the longest five minutes ever sitting there staring at the flags slowly saunter in the background. It was the only movement on the screen, very eerie. Finally the President walked into frame and up to the podium. I could feel the tension in the pressroom permeate into my living room.

“My fellow Americans, and people of the world, it is with great urgency that I must make this speech. Some people may have noticed the recent changes. It is on a very small scale at the moment, but I have been informed it will reach global proportions very soon.” He paused to take a drink of water; one could see a visible quiver in his arm as he did so. “Our top scientists and those from around the world have confirmed that our water table is reversing itself. Simply put, rain is going in reverse. I cannot explain the reach or implications of this information, so I will turn the podium over to a top American scientist who can explain further. Dr. Schmeckle, if you please.”

My jaw dropped. I ran over to the calendar that sits on my desk in the office. It was certainly not April first, and this was not simply an elaborate joke. I could not hear any laughing though my television from the pressroom either. This was real. I started getting text messages, left and right, from friends, obviously news was travelling fast.

Dr. Schmeckle eased onto the platform soundlessly. He was improbably old looking, but you could see a youthful fire in his impossibly blue eyes. He wore a traditional empowering white lab coat, but lacked all the other traditional mad scientist accoutrements. I was honestly hoping for rubber gloves or welding goggles; the best I was going to get were a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that he wore. His hair was slicked back with copious amounts of gel and was as white as freshly fallen snow.

“As you have already heard the President say,” His voice was low and hearty, “The water tables are reversing. In essence, clouds are no longer depositing rain on the earth, but rather sucking up water like a sponge, and then it is disappearing, we’re not sure how.”

-V-

Read Part 2