Sponsor a story at EDF - Your message can reach thousands of readers for just $4
It’s raining again. Cold, wet sheets of gray are falling in the same steady rhythm they’d been falling in every day for a week.
“Last October we had a heat wave,” says Parker, his forehead pressed against the window in Marshall’s office, watching the traffic of black umbrella tops on the sidewalk eighteen stories below. “This year, it’s cold and wet. Whoever’s in charge of weather needs to learn about balance.”
“Maybe they should take up yoga,” says Marshall, without looking up from his computer.
“Maybe they should,” says Parker. He stands upright and leaves a forehead print on the glass. “Maybe whoever’s in charge of weather should buy a yoga mat with a Buddha on it. Maybe they should start drinking Chai tea with soy milk.”
“Maybe you should get the hell out of my office,” says Marshall. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“Everything gives you a headache,” says Parker, but he leaves. He wanders down the carpeted hallway peeking into the offices that are open, looking to see if anyone from the agency is up for lunch. A real lunch, with drinks as an appetizer. He’s feeling restless; the rain’s getting to him. He’d been Mr. Gung-ho at the beginning of the month, ready to start a dozen new projects that all now seem to be waiting for the sun to shine before he can get back to them.
Everyone in the agency is too busy for lunch. They don’t want to go out in that mess, they’ll order in and eat at their desks while they work. They tell Parker this as if he should do that too, and he goes back to his office and shuts his door. He puts his feet up on his desk, squeezes a stress ball and watches the endless gray sheets of rain.
A woman appears in the window of the office building on the other side of the street. She’s wearing a white blouse that glows in the gloom. She presses her forehead against the glass just as Parker had done in Marshall’s office and stands looking down on the street.
She’s pretty, thinks Parker. He can see the healthy swell of her breasts beneath the blouse. He can’t see her legs or her ass, but he has a feeling that they’d be nice too. He thinks about scribbling a note on a piece of poster board. “Would you like to have lunch?” She looks like the type that would say yes.
He swings his feet off his desk, quickly grabs a piece of foam core and a Sharpie, but when he looks at the window again, she’s gone.
“Figures,” he says. He resumes his rain-watching position and a black leather desk chair crashes through the window where the woman was standing. It flips over once and plummets, wheels spinning as it falls.
Parker rushes to the window. The chair has already landed on top of a cab by the time he gets there. The driver gets out and waves his arms in wild arcs.
“Holy shit,” says Parker.
The woman appears again, framed by the jagged edges of the broken window. She’s even prettier without the filter of glass; high, Slavic cheekbones and hair the color of wheat pulled off her face into a tight French knot. She looks down at the chair and the beginnings of a traffic jam, then looks straight ahead and her eyes meet Parker’s.
His eyebrows shoot up to ask what happened and the woman dives with the grace and poise of an Olympic champion over the edges of the shattered window and into the cold river of rain. She lands on the same cab that the chair did, a circle of onlookers already formed, waiting for her without knowing she was coming.
Heather Holland Wheaton has self-published two collections of interconnected flash fiction: Eight Million Stories in a New York Minute and Wet Paint. Eight Million Stories has sold nearly 2000 copies and has been listed in the annual Time Out Guide New York as ‘Suggested Further Reading’ since 2005. Her work has also appeared in P.I.M., The Morning News, Common Ground and Slipstream.
GD Star Rating
loading...
loading...
Did you like this story?
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed! (what is rss)
Don’t miss another story! Subscribe to Every Day Fiction via RSS.- Share on Facebook
20 Responses to “RAIN • by Heather Holland Wheaton”
Comments
« Podcast EDF022: Telephone Call • written by James Bloomfield • read by Matt Cowens | Home | YANA • by Fadzlishah Johanabas »
May 4th, 2010 at 1:51 am
Good idea for a story, but too much tell and too little show. It felt very flat. Maybe you were trying for that to amplify the depressing atmosphere, but it just left me not caring about the characters or the outcome.
May 4th, 2010 at 3:41 am
One of the best pieces I’ve read in a while.
The brooding atmosphere built up well, as did the ‘if only’ irony.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:30 am
I may think about this story the next time it rains in Arizona.
May 4th, 2010 at 4:53 am
This story is great. Nice build-up to a crashing conclusion. Loved it.
May 4th, 2010 at 6:39 am
This is a powerful, evocative story, the best I’ve read in ages. It took my breath away. MARVELOUS! * * * * *
May 4th, 2010 at 6:42 am
I really liked that story. The writing style is clear and direct, I didn’t have to reread any of it and the ending was not something I saw coming.
May 4th, 2010 at 7:17 am
“Evocative” is a word one commenter used and I have to agree. This is the most impressive story that I have read so far in EDF and I have read many. You have talent.
May 4th, 2010 at 8:09 am
ditto Paul’s comment. The dive with grace, the waiting without knowing she’s coming – brilliantly satisfying.
Five stars, and “Eight Million Stories in a New York Minute” will be in my shopping cart by the weekend.
May 4th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Really good story and I love surprise ending.
May 4th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Great ending! I like that she dove, rather than jumped – very graceful, fitting for a beautiful woman.
May 4th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Great story! I really liked the build up to the end.
May 4th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Beautiful writing. Really enjoyed this story – very well told.
May 5th, 2010 at 3:54 am
Great writing. Putting it in present tense was a daring choice. As everyone said, terrific build up to an unexpected ending. Thank you for sharing.
May 5th, 2010 at 6:17 am
Love it. As atmospheric as the weather itself.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I’m glad the woman was okay, but I really would like to know more about what’s going on here.
May 5th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Jen, the woman was not okay. She jumped. She committed suicide.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
wow
May 6th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Ah, sorry. To me it sounded like we wer dealing with supernatural elements here and she had landed on the car alright. Don’t ask me where my head was yesterday!
May 9th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Bravo! Classic Wheaton. Intelligent unhappiness, and the mysterious enlightenment of death… I am not a seagull; I am Parker.
January 15th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Oh
My
God.
Absolutely brilliant.
Five brilliant stars.