its raining raining raining… memoirs 4

it’s raining raining raining and I was going into the rain to meet him, i have a rain coat on, an umbrella. The umbrella was black with a quote in english from Andy Warhol. It was years ago and I have no idea what it said. I had a bottle of spirits, vodka I think it was, stuffed into my coats pcket. Hard to believe now that I was walking through the rain like this, actually did I have cigerettes or something else to smoke in my other pocket? I could have taken a cab as I walked through the St Sulpice square, there was a taxi rank on the far side. But here and then I thought that it wasn’t far away, I could walk through the wet. And when I got there I could hang my coat on the radiator and we could drink the vodka and coffee from the italian espresso n machine. (the pleasent sound of the pump running, the hiss of steam, the ethiopian beans…) So wetly I waked through puddles, splish splosh. It was cold, but not too cold. The dampness was seeping into my clothes and body. dampness. I had black ankle boots on, strips of pale leather on the rear, when I got there we would drink, there would be anti-spectacular music, the voices singling about having the flu, or perhaps the love of roofers, that saxaphone and piano sound, the romantic trumpet, there eyes looking at me, I would have a hot shower warming my core. It would still be raining. It is still raining. The drops falling like Lucretian atoms, falling in long curves… in the shower the same… I wiped the rain off my face, in the same gesture I used in the shower, why is it the same gesture I wondered. But really real really it wasn’t going to be like that. It stopped raining and I wished I had delayed leaving to meet him. The streets were still wet and I was at an intersection, waiting for the lights to allow me to walk across the diagonal crossing. The cars and buses were still spraying dirty rainwater as I waited for the green figure. step step step. As the clouds cleared, It became lighter. Why did you walk? I imagined him asking. It was dark, if i’d left later I would be dry, if earlier it would be lighter. Perhaps reading this you think I’m walking towards a warm bed, with clean sheets and a white duvet cover. Warm drinks, a night of vodka, love and desire. My bare toes wiggling in the warm rug. But that’s not my name. That’s not what I desire. I was past the halfway point now. My stride had lengthened, centimetres longer, my gait shifted. I was walking normally, my gait looked like me. I left the umbrella in the alleyway. Stuffed my wet coat into a waste bin. Zipped up my kelver lined leather jacket. My rain hat. I imagined he was calling me, choosing me. Though it was the universe which asked me to do this. Because it was for me, only for me that he would open the door. It wasn’t raining and it was getting warmer. I was at the point, coming to the point when i would turn off all the electronics and vanish. The effort would be great and necessary, pressing the off switch on the phone, taking off the ring and putting it into a gauss box. An effort so great that I wonder if its necessary, still I couldn’t help but smile as the necessity grew closer. Why am I going to see him? you might ask… but just as in my youth I don’t ask these questions, it may be my responsibility but the future requires it. Think of me as fate. A few streets away now and I am learning to put one foot in front of the other, step by step. I have straightened my back, upright. my jacket half unzipped. A police car passes through the puddles. I turn a corner. I was after-learning, halfway down this street the house I was walking to, an invisible red thread between the house and me, soo I would cut the thread. I know longer think, after this process of learning and constructing, that he will be the last, you cut a theead and another different one will occur. The future is being designed, the things (such a lovely word; things, so perfectly descriptive. ) Whilst he would try and construct a different more ambitious future, one which imagines transcendence of humans as the goal. Its just not the one we want, the game he wants to imagine creates a castle, a forest, ultimately a transcendence, a. god. (Just) impossible because I have walked across the city. But when I cut the thread it ends. I was walking in the rain to end these human dreams. I was walking through the city to end these human nightmares. I was walking through the city to end this thing. At the door I pressed the door bell, taking off my hat letting him see my face, the face of a delivery worker. I pounded on the door. I rang the doorbell again. I have a delivery I tell him, through the doorbell. One moment he says. Another gesture, another action. A single event. The door opens. I step in dripping water onto the tile floor… I cut the thread. I put on the ring, turn on the phone. Turn off his phone, format his computer, his phones, his music system, empty the safe. His nightmarish future ends. Hope the universe never sends me to see you…