kentucky rain
It was a late November night. The fires of autumn extinguished by the misty rains leaving only the grief of yet another year coming to an end.
I sat and watched the soft New England shower dance on the streets looking much like fireworks against the red, yellow and green of traffic lights kept pace to their monotony. It was all very melodramatic and silent as the smoke from my cigarette danced in the night sky as fairies dance in the forests and disappeared into the mist.
A lone figure walked through the streets, silent and with purpose, headed towards my home, moreover to me. He was unassuming and plain, dressed in a long coat and a hoody. His face was covered in shadow and fog, and yet I felt I knew him.
“Yes.” He said I a dry low voice.
“Yes what?” I asked.
“You do. You know me.”
“How, from where?” I asked as I struggled to see his face.
“We have met seven times in the last five years.”
“You.” I said as I set back in my chair.
“It’s my time now?”
“No.” he sighed.
“I’m on my way to another place but I wanted to stop and speak with you, if I may.”
“I won’t say no, but I do wonder what it is you would have to say to me?”
He sat on the stoop of my home and looked deep into the night searching for something and not knowing what.
“I know you must have a grudge against me, but it’s just my job. It’s what I was made to do. I hold no malice for anyone and I don’t pick those who are taken. I just come and get them. You know?”
“I don’t hate you, never did. I just don’t understand why I am left behind. Why I can’t go too.” I said as I flicked my cigarette into a puddle of water.
“
“It’s not your time.” He said.
“But why? Don’t tell me there’s some great plan, that I have something left to give to the world. I am sixty years old and sure I could have done something to make my mark. I could have been famous, a father, someone with a legacy. But look at me, I am spent. I have nothing more to give to humanity. I have no desire to be my brother’s keeper. All I want is to be with my family, to know that their okay, fine and loved in gods grace.
“If not then I would ask that their sins be given to me so that they can spend the rest of time in his grace, in his arms. So she no longer has to suffer because she knew me. I need to know that she is at rest.”
He sat and hung his head for a moment, then turned to look at me.
“There is nothing I can do about that. What happens over there stays over there and no one is allowed to know things that are secret and uncanny to this place.”
“Then take me. Take me to them, to her and give me one last chance to be useful again.”
He stood and shook off some of the rain that had built up on his coat.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that? Your pain is not unique and your desires are pedantic. Everyone feels the way you feel in this time of life, when the old leaves fall from the tree of life.”
“Bullshit.”
A cold blast of wind rolled over me, chilling me to the bone. He turned and took one step towards me the wind chilled even deeper before it died.
“Do you think you are the only one to lose like you have lost? This world has shrugged off entire bloodlines with no more thought than a person shoeing a fly from their flesh. You are nothing more than a flimsy speck of flesh wrapping the most beautiful spark of life ever created and your kind delights in scrubbing it from this planet en mass.
“I do not belittle your pain. I just don’t feel the need to wipe the tears from our eyes. All things happen as they are supposed to and all things play their part in the grand scheme. It’s just the way things are.”
“And if you cant tell me my place in the machinations, then take me out of it. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“All things in their time.” He spoke like a whisper in my ear.
He began to walk away as the mist became a real rain. I watched silently as he stood at the corner of the street. He turned and pulled the hood off of his head. In the streetlight of a cold November night I saw the face of my father looking back at me.
He smiled for a moment before he put his hood back up and stepped into the street as he continued on his way.
“There is more for you to do.’ He said as he made is way out of sight.
The rain fell cold and sharp on my skin, like little metal spiders crawling over my flesh as I walked into my house to set down and wonder over what I had just experienced and falling into a restless, haunted sleep.