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The Drain
I walk in the rain. I look up and see nothing but the dreary darkness of the sky. Is this part of life? The cold seems to cut to the bone. Yet I show my pearly whites and shiver a little to get the warmth back. Goose pimples come and go as I shiver and shake. My walking quickens as I get colder. The night comes and it seems darker than ever before. There are no stars because of the clouds and cold water falling from the sky. I notice a small piercing bit of coldness on my left foot. My shoe is starting to soak through. The water rushes down the well engineered gutters of the street and into the storm drain. I wonder where the drain goes. No matter how much it rains the water goes down the drain. Down and to where? Always down though, and somewhere beyond. I watch as small twigs and leaves ride the river in the gutter to only fall to their ultimate demise in the drain. They never see it coming. The drain is large and handles whatever the gutter throws at it. Taking all forms of life and vanquishing them as soon as they enter the blackness of its heart. A rushing noise comes from the drain. I am not sure if this is the noise of life being taken or of the water flowing as it should. I metaphorically compare life to the drain and the gutter in my mind. It reminds me of the way things are in the small town that I never get out of. This small town has consumed so many to their doom that getting away is impossible. Yet I swim; I swim with all my might to escape the doom of the drain. I hear people screaming over the rush of water that is falling into the drain. Their cries grow faint as the get swept away into the oblivion of water that consumes their souls. Their dreams are faint glimpses of light as the lightning crashes. The thunder is the drain taking them and smashing them into bits that can never be put back together. Every so often the lighting starts a fire. Someone’s dreams were large and the fire cleansed them of the dreams and destroyed the hope and future of their souls.
I swim harder and harder. I am barely staying ahead of the current. I am merely staying in one spot. I am like a salmon trying to swim upstream to spawn. I jump and swim with all of my might and being. I cannot gain on the stream only maintain. People that are floating towards the drain grab and claw at me trying to stay out of the drain. They just can’t overcome its pull. The water is changing color. It is darkening. The drain is growing larger and larger. I swim and swim for all I am worth. I will prevail; I will overcome the power of the drain. They yell and scream for me to help them. I cannot, I simply cannot help them. I can barely stay ahead of it on my own let alone with someone else. I yell at them to swim, I tell them to just try. For some reason they just kick and flounder about as if they don’t know how to swim. I cannot understand why they just don’t try. More and more of them are pulled into the drain. The screams and shrieking of children is nearly unbearable. I reach out and grab a person only to find myself being pulled towards the drain. I must let go to get away from the clutch of the icy black water. I swim and swim unsure of what I will find if the rain stops or if I get ahead of the current.
I have become numb to the shrieking and crying. I play songs and hum in my head to keep free of the reality of the drain. I start singing stupid songs like Mary Had a Little Lamb and Bingo. I move on to larger things and start to think about the mountains and the good times I had as a child, the times when I went camping with my family. I remember when I was a child and the worries just did not exist. The drain had no effect on me. Now I must swim to stay alive. Others just float; they just float down stream all the while not worrying about the things in life that are important. I start to imagine the sun and the warmth of it shining on my cold body. I swim and find a way to just be part of the stream. I let all others float right on by not telling them of the drain that is up ahead. I am far enough ahead of the drain now that its sounds are barely audible.
I wonder if the drain can be filled up. I don’t know. I don’t know where it goes. All I am sure of is that it goes down; down to somewhere I don’t want to go. People don’t scream to be saved from a place that is good. I swim and every so often I come across someone that has tried to swim and becomes tired and gives up. Then they just float. They do a simple back float and stop caring about the stream. The drain is at the end, I think in my mind. I don’t tell them about the drain. Telling people about the drain and the sounds coming from it is not good. They don’t understand it. They can’t even swim. The further I get upstream the slower the flow becomes. I see people jumping in the water now, they are intrigued by it. Their ultimate demise is ahead of them and they don’t even realize it. Is it the darkness? Is that the reason that they can’t see the drain? It is in plain view, very easy to see.
I shake my head and blink a few times. I need to get going, I am getting soaked standing here looking into a storm drain. My left shoe was right in the gutter so it is now soaked all the way through. My sock is soggy. I show my pearly whites and shiver a little to get the warmth back. A simple shrug and I start walking again. I start to jog a little now to get out of the rain. I never understood if running when it rained to get inside sooner really helped me or anyone to stay dryer. Yet I see everyone do it. So I jog.
I think about the warmth of inside my home that I worked hard to get. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind I think about the Drain. I wonder if I will dream about it tonight. These thoughts never escape my lips. People would scoff and more than likely not like to hear such tales of the truth. So I wonder in my little world about the Drain.
Last edited by Bigheadbud : 06-22-2007 at 10:47 AM.
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