Downpour

The rain came as a surprise, not like the rains in Dublin, where one always carried an umbrella and assumed that at any minute, even if the heavens were blue and breezy, grey misty curtains could close in on the theater of the sky, carrying with them another rainshower. No, this rain descended unexpectedly after weeks of dry, hot sun had desiccated the city, and it arrived all at once, delivered on a swift gale that swept in front of the torrents of water, pushing the air in front of it like the gusts that escape an opened oven.

He stood, nose pressed against the window, bouncing up and down in excitement until his mother finally gave her permission. Running out into the downpour, he circled around and around the backyard, raising his arms up to meet the falling drops of water, palms outstretched, reveling in the cool respite from the summer's monotonous heat. He danced as though observing an ancient ritual, passed down through his little body from the collective unconscious: a communion with the element of water, so basic and simple, so axiomatic, so profoundly powerful in its ability both to create and to destroy.

Serpent of fury

She knew that the rage she felt was completely out of proportion to the trigger that released it. Yet this awareness did not change the fact of it: a seething, white-hot serpent of fury lay coiled round her heart, and just when she thought that it had gone back to sleep, her three-year old came waltzing out of her bed again, giggling, and it reared up, injecting its venom into her veins.

The poison took effect instantly, sending a wave of pressure across her chest, down her arms and up her neck, squeezing her temples and grinding its way into her forehead. I don't have time for this bullshit, she said to herself, as she hustled her child unceremoniously back to bed, barking her displeasure all the way. Her actions inflamed her even more, sending her spiraling into despair for her parenting skills, impatience with her own emotions pounding against her skull. She was so ashamed of the anger that reared its head day after day that she could barely speak of it, and she kept it cloistered away, like Mr. Rochester's wife in Jane Eyre, refusing to recognize it or to know it, its ugliness and wildness an self-imposed weight on her already heavy heart.

Culture shock

Their conversation had begun amiably enough, because in Austin, it seemed to him at least, all conversations begin amiably. But even speaking about the weather got under his skin in a gnawing sort of way, like the constant concern that maybe he was sitting right over a colony of fire-ants. I mean, it's like a million and five degrees outside, and it's 11 o'clock at night, he thought to himself, as his new acquaintance expounded on the joys of living in a sub-tropical climate -- but he smiled and nodded all the same.

When the conversation turned to politics, however, his apathy waned and the spirit of righteousness and indignation that had been baked into his very core took the reins. He had a lot to say about Washington DC, not to mention the World Bank's follies and Bono's naivité. As he hit his stride, he noticed a look of -- concern? pity? etched on this near-stranger's face. I get freaked out about that stuff too, but I just try to remember, all of this is part of the way, the path. Everything is working out for our highest good. Everything is gonna be okay, the man said, sympathetically patting him on the shoulder.

His temper flared and he felt his eyes bulging as he strained to keep himself from shouting across the room. In the end he was able to restrain himself to a terse but heartfelt, You know what? No. No, everything is NOT going to be okay. He turned on his heel, deposited his half-drunk bottle of Shiner in the recycle bin, and walked directly back to his apartment, where he bought a plane ticket back to Boston, and gave his landlord 30 days notice.

Mortal birth

It wasn't until after her first child was born that she developed a fear of flying. Before that the risk inherent in launching oneself twenty thousand feet into the air had seemed almost joyous, a liberation, a brush against the breath of god. She would close her eyes in meditative repose and let her fate wash over her, accepting the possibility of death as one of many equally valid potential paths.

Now she sat, her back rigid against the narrow seat, her sleeping baby cradled across her chest, ignoring FDA regulations, because really, if they crashed, would that subtle difference in position save him? It was the same logic she had used in high school to justify hurtling down the country roads around her home in her vintage VW bug, wearing no seat belt. At that time, however, her decision was motivated by a cavalier trust in benevolence of the universe. With the birth of herself as a mother that shell of trust had been shed, leaving her raw, vulnerable to the searing pain of mortality.

Palm Sunday

When they woke, sun was pouring through the window of their compartment, and they realized that the train was standing quietly at the end of the line. How long they had been there was anyone's guess; as they scrambled out onto the deserted platform, she wondered if anyone ever would have bothered to wake them, or if they would have been allowed to drift on, unconscious, to the next destination.

Getting a room was more difficult than they had imagined it would be, but they didn't put it together until they boarded a bus headed towards the Vatican, packed with dozens of people carrying large branches of palm. It was strange to find herself on the outside of a metaphor so central to her culture, like a teetotaler arriving in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, awkward and displaced, intrigued but not really curious, suspicious that she had never really woken that morning, but had instead accidentally fallen into someone else's dream.

Escape

The dry heat that had reigned over the city for months had given way to a steaming humidity as the previous night's rain evaporated from the streets. He sat in his car at the stoplight, and, delayed by the queue of rush hour vehicles in front of him, was fiddling with his iPod when a figure on the sidewalk caught the corner of his eye.

The man was working the horizontal grate of a metal-framed trash barrel; now he was deftly, expertly swinging it open and pulling it out to examine its contents. His face was not unattractive, and he was tall and gaunt, his matted dreadlocks spilling out over his shoulders like the mane of an underfed lion. Despite the heat, his clothing hung in layers of ragged folds down the length of his arms and legs, enveloping his body in its volumes. His movements were confident and directed as he swooped into the barrel, recovering a bag with a half-eaten sandwich and half-empty bottle of Coke, remnants of another's excesses.

As he sat there in his car, he felt a captive audience to this man's private moment, and a wave of empathy welled up from deep in his gut. He thought of the nights, years before, when he too had longed to escape the shackles of modern living. Unable to sleep, he had fled into the inhospitable urban wilderness, wandering in the cold until finally finding refuge under a fire escape, where looking up, the stars had appeared, dimly reaching out from the heavens, obscured by the glow of the city but dignified nonetheless.

Spiral staircase

He just couldn't get over the stairs in the place, spiraling up into the ceiling, the shiny wood steps guarded by a graceful banister of brushed steel. Who can afford an apartment like this at our age? Six years of graduate school had taken a toll on his finances and his morale, and he sighed to himself as he wondered why he had started the program in the first place. Art History? So I could get a job? The webs of delusion that he could spin to justify a decision knew no limit in their density and reach.

Of course now that he was almost finished, there was no point in quitting, or analyzing, or standing here in this goddamn corner of this swanky apartment when he could be networking, or at least enjoying himself. His wife was chatting animatedly to a stranger across the room, and his drink was empty. He could get a refill and then casually join her conversation...yes, that was a plan. Uprooting himself from his misery, he headed to the kitchen for another Tanqueray and tonic.