This delightful and enchanting story was chosen to appear in Bright Light Multimedia's latest anthology,

“Speaking of Love”.

For your pleasure and perusal, we present an extract from ...
 

When It Rains, It Pours

--- 1 ---

The drops of rain fall like acid onto his cardboard house. In the minute and twenty-three seconds you spend stopped at that traffic light, you watch his home, and most of his life, disintegrate around him. The rain seeps through his box and, even though the light turns green, you can’t help but stay and admire the decay.

He’s wearing a black pea coat he probably found on the ground, or stole from one of the other homeless men lining this street. The coat looks almost as old and withered as he. This is the only satisfaction you’ve had in weeks - at least you aren’t him. You manage a weak smile, as you drive a third lap around your block.

You continue to contemplate everything that’s happened in the last year, as each raindrop beats your window like a savage, fighting to obstruct your view of the road. It’s a tempting thought to just shut the wipers off on your silver B.M.W. 320 coup. You wonder what it would be like to finally give up and let the rain just take you in.
 

--- 2 ---

Thirty minutes away, in the New Alliance Bank office building, towering thirty stories over Hartford, a very plain-looking girl, dressed in her jet-black suit, looks out a window on the twenty-third floor, simply wondering if anyone would notice if she jumped. Admiring the same raindrops, crashing and splashing like a continuous flow from an unseen faucet above, she is alone, as always. She has spent most of her life this way, waiting for people to notice her; they never have.

When she was the top student at Morris Elementary School, no one noticed. When she got a 1530 on her SAT’s, no one noticed. When she moved out of her abusive father’s house so she wouldn’t get beaten and touched anymore, no one noticed. When she put herself through college, and graduated as the valedictorian at Smith, no one noticed. Now, when she sulks around this enormous office, no one notices. She spends her days in the basement, managing all of the paper work coming in from 17 different branches; but no one notices. She’s still just a vice president, when she does more work than any given three executives combined. She spends the entire day working alongside people that don’t even seem to see her.

Every day is the same: she comes to work, dressed in her jet-black suit, with her hair tied in a tidy bun, a doorknob of hair on the back of her head. It’s two in the morning and she’s still working, but no one will notice tomorrow. No one will realize that without her this company would fall apart.

If only these windows could open, she thinks as she looks from the random office down to the entryway. If only these windows could open, then they’d see her. If only these windows could open, she wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore. She wipes the tears from her eyes and heads back to the basement, where mountains of papers await at her desk.
 

--- 3 ---

Down below the sky caressing office, a lone man walks, assaulted by the million soldiers of water that make suicide dives at him from above. He can’t tell if he’s still crying or if the rain has simply become a permanent fixture on his face. His brain is working overtime, as shown by the confused expression laid across his face. How? He wonders. How could this happen?

Everything had been so amazing. He got married a year ago and was awaiting the birth of his first child. He finally got the big promotion at work. He had just bought a beautiful, new house with four bedrooms, a beautiful back yard, and a white fence, to keep the forthcoming kids and pets safe. He had finally achieved his childhood dream; he had finally built the life he pictured since he was ten. How could things go wrong?

The same questions pound in his head as he walks into the oncoming rain, wearing his favorite t-shirt and the pair of jeans his wife had bought him for his birthday, last week. He asks himself all these questions while he walks, and grips the steel handle of the nine-millimeter pistol clenched in his left hand.

He can barely see through the rain, but he can’t close his eyes. Every time they shut, he sees his wife, and his brother. His wife’s naked body cuddled against his brother’s, in his bed. His bed! He can’t close his eyes, so he just keeps walking. Keeps thinking. Keeps clenching his gun, wondering what comes next.
 

The complete story can now be found in Bright Light Multimedia’s latest publication
Speaking of Love
- positive and uplifting short stories and poems about romance, marriage and true love -

Click here for more information 

Editor: "When It Rain It Pours" is a wonderful story – in fact, we like it so much, we chose it to go into our book about the joys and wonder of love – “Speaking of Love”. If you know someone who enjoys feeling good all over, then this is the perfect present for them. Remember you deserve to feel happy too. Why not give yourself the gift that keeps on giving – “Speaking of Love”.
 

 
Essential Art: Thank You Is Word of the Magic Giclee Print
Hasekura, Miyuki
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