Romance

Under construction of pen and ink . . .

. . . and time. ;)

Rain Maker

Ch. 0 Life On The Skyline

Ch. 1 Life’s . . .

“It’s easy . . .” His fingers feel my temples. “Close your eyes . . .”
Black.
“Think of a memory . . . just pull one out . . .”
What’s going on? Where am I?

☂

Life as I know it seems a little fuzzy . . . okay, too fuzzy to remember if the fuzz is just fluff or some other stuff. . . . Fuzzy. A little too fuzzy to make a full-view picture out of . . . especially now that the viewfinder’s gone black . . . Black. Storms are this way . . . the coal-covered sky. It’s the reason . . . something . . . happened. . . .

☂

The warm fingers on my temples flex . . . Pressure. “Not good enough. Try harder ____________.”
There—the word I can’t understand. What is that? It jumps out like a lightning bolt . . . Wild.
“Concentrate, and I won’t have to hurt you again, Beautiful. . . .” The fingers fall from my beaded temples to my cheek.
Eyes flash open.
Blinding white.
Scream.
My mouth’s open . . .
Ch. 1.5 . . . Reject

I jolt . . . air fleeing my mouth in a punctured yelp.
Black.
My arms tense and pulse with the rush of adrenaline that piquing my veins’ interests. Shaking. Hard breath beats my lungs, wagging the cords of thin strings that carry air. My eyes try focus on for a moment, but everything’s just so dark.
Why these dreams?
Why the same?
A rumble booms in the distance . . . Jumpy . . . so jumpy.
B-R-E-A-T-H-E, “Skyler!” B-R-E-A-T-H-E.
My name . . .
“Huh?” I blurt, shifting my burning feet from the jumble of covers at bay.
“Sky, you ‘kay?” The voice coos, my pulsing beats of heartache drowning out my seeking ears that wish the tone to speak once more.
“Sky . . .” The word perches in the air.
Then, it all rushes back with my name—my life. I blink twice.
“Skyler, honey. Are you all right?” Every sy-lla-ble pronounces itself painfully slowly as Kelly’s voice drums, drawing a sheet of sense and comfort over my sprightly nerves.
I take in a labored chunk of air . . . pushing it out, “Yeah.”
Rain collides corrosively with the card-thin walls and windows outside. It’s almost like the sound when you blow on the pebbles of water that spurt out of a shower head . . . phhhphhphphphhhhphhhtkphphphtk . . .
“Liar . . .” The sheets shudder over there. Two feet hit the floor.
A warm hand catches my flexed arm—still so tense from the start. I jump slightly.
Oh God, it didn’t used to be like this.
My hand meets my clammy brow.
“You wanna talk?” Kelly bends a little.
My fingers shake ferociously. The winds whoop outside like the sound of howling jackals on a savannah . . . hunting.
Kelly’s hand brushes my steamy back.
“No, Kel. Thanks though.” The words harshly drip away from my thirsty tongue, like vinegar.
Temples sting . . . not like last time.
It’s worse now.
I breathe out life one more time before I inhale more of it. Aches set in . . . dizzy spins turn the room around. Wind shivers and curls in howling gulps.
Swallow the knot in my throat.
Shake my head . . . every legible edge of sight tosses . . . A sweep of crumbling and shifting sounds screech into my muted hearing; Kelly’s gone again.
Breathe . . .
Groan . . .
The pillow whacks my head asleep . . .

☂

A blue sheen of sunlight spills in, taking my eyelids by two fingers. A drizzle of rain pitter patters its way to noisy yawns as two paws beat incessantly against my legs.
“Up, Sky! The sun’s . . . uh-well . . . it’s not exactly shining as some of us want. Hope you recovered from last night because you’re about to take a blow from Professor Strunger’s test . . . you get that back today, which means sunshine let’s hope. UP!” She persuades, continuing on her way as I pry my claws from my cave, “ . . . while I’m stuck behind a pre-med ‘aptitude’ exam . . . weeee . . .” Deflated and sarcastic, Kelly drones on, and the sound of toothpaste and foam stutter.
I yank the sheets above my tangled mess called hair and lift my arms to stretch my tingly muscles. The sheets fall under my pushy hand, where sight leads the way to a free bathroom.
Suspense . . . Oh, college life.
I leap, pitter patter, pick up clothes, scramble for brush . . . where’s the brush. Need a brush! Where are you—yadda yadda . . . bingo! Score . . . door shuts. The whir of a fan filters through the steamy air in free waves, dispelling the condensation on the walls.
I push off the rags I’m wearing, and I shove a “nice” shirt up and over my spindles for arms.
Toothpaste, clear water rushing, breathe in, wipe away humidity on the mirror . . . pants . . . Place my hand on my forehead, rubbing a brush through the auburn, brown, gold, whatever strands of hair . . . pants? Hmm . . . Keep foaming teeth busy as I look for my pants. Aha—gotcha . . . all set. Spit.
Both hands on the sink, look through my green eyes that are bluer today—skies are that way . . . Quick check—yep, freckles all in place.
Let’s go . . .

☂

The jacket wasn’t a necessity, but I’m wearing it. I don’t mind being wet, I suppose. Splash, kersplish, essplashh . . . the puddles drone on down the walkway, talking to me.
The zip of my backpack slides past my covering every once and awhile—it has quite an incorrigible personality really, as does everything inanimate on this planet. Well, I guess some humans are that way. But, this backpack tends to “not work”, as I call it; the zippers, the arms, or whatever else, abuse their statuses as backpack pieces. I prefer, “bagamathingamabob”. So, you can just call him “Bob” if you like.
Oh, the sky’s gray. Bleak.
There’s the light . . .
A little early.
“Dr. Strunger! How are you faring today, Sir?” My voice pushes itself up and out like a stranger to me.
“Ah, Miss Shieldtz, truly cunning—your essay,” he points a wagging finger in my direction. “Wouldn’t take no for an answer, would we? I always like that about you.” His fuzzy eyebrows rise as a subtle Irish accent fills the vacant room—no one else (or no one conscious, anyway . . . a few people asleep or head down out of fear for being human, right?) here that wants to speak.
His eyes spark behind his eyes as he resumes writing on the boards, his small stature bound in an argyle sweater.
I squeak my shoes into the aisle of blue seats and lay Bob on the speckled floor, my hands on the creamy top of the desk.
I close my eyes . . . Yeah—like that’ll help drown out the noise of hurricanes inside my head.
My brow in hands, trying to wake the sleep in my cloudy eyes, I hear another clikkety clack squeak assault the halled silence.
“Heyyyyyyy, Suh-weeeeeet Sky! What’s up with this weather, huh?” It’s Bobby.
My eyes can’t help but smile as I turn, meeting his open hand with mine.
“Hey, B. How’d orientation go for your trip?” My eyes trail him as he squats in a seat, his chocolate face relaying the story; you see, he’s wanted this forever. Kenya is his homeland, and in a few months, he could live there forever. So, as it turns out, the orientation went as well as one would hope a dream would drift in the beginning stages . . . kinda like letting that big, red balloon loose from your tiny fingers when you were a kid, watching it rise until it’s a dot in the sky. He’s letting it fly.
“Hey Sky . . . what’d you get on this one?” A tall blond walks in, and I turn my head to yawn in the other direction, answering: “Don’t know, Cor . . . don’t [yawn] know . . .”
I put my head in my arms and tense everything to relax everything.
People’s shoes click clacking and smacking squeakily file in; my eyes are closed.
Behind me Sue sits down. You can tell because of that cloud of perfume hugging everything in range.
“Hey, Doc!” buzzes in my ear. Then, “You think you did well?” the melody of Sue’s voice warms my hearing.
Twisting like a dance in the chair, I place both feet on the ground to meet the group.
Sue’s black hair sweeps to her back as her hands smack the desk, leaning toward me as the expectation lights a match of intrigue.
A small laugh from me, “You all think I can read Doc’s mind, right? Wow . . .”
Corey smirks, an eyebrow drawing itself upward in a perched stupor. “You never know, Sky.” He leans back, his long legs bent.
“So?” Sue persists.
“Sure . . . why not? Hope’s better than pessimism on any rainy day . . . how’d you do?” again . . . adjacent to my mind-set this tone pulls itself off like a lilac or daisy springing up. The only problem is—this flower is frozen in a matter of metaphors, but no one is nearsighted enough to spot it.
A groan, “uh . . . how do you think we did?” sets in.
A wave from Doc. S, and we knew he was listening . . . as was well predicted. (We are the only few making noise in here except for our harmonious chalk scratcher directing a tune on the black board . . . On that note, why are there still chalk boards? Oh well . . . use a marker, please, Doc.)
“IN A MATTER OF MOMENTS . . .” a pause for dramatic effect from this man with the bright-rimmed glasses reflecting the monitor on his desk, “YOU will WITNESS the RISing and FALLing of MANY men and women,” Doc laughs and cradles his spectacles in a sober, chalky hand that had once been used to alert of a listener.
“In a matter of moments, I’m-a-gonna-die!” Cor leans forward, hugging his desk for dear life while tapping a nonchalant pencil on the desk as a flood of people—just like raindrops—plop into class . . . a puddle.
I flip my head down, dangle there in the aisle for a moment, then whip my head skyward as to a least get some fluffy air behind my layered long hair . . . there is some semblance of order to this world after all—the flip never ceases to make one’s room spin.
Chalk squeaks calmly, papers move on desks, projector screen drawn down, and last second “hey”s and yawns shred to pieces . . . Class erupts with,
“BAAAAAANG!” Doc’s hands spout forward, and he snickers as the A’s and G’s of that word echo throughout the classroom, prickling eyes to attention.
“Woke you, Mr. Hunter!” He sticks a stubby finger toward his prey. A spry smile slides onto the Professor’s wide-eyed face. His glasses make him look this way . . . peculiarly warm-hearted behind those magnified gray eyes, sparkling.
“Startling discovery . . . Only . . . One . . . A . . . on this test.” He rounds his desk with a firm palm on the rounded edge, standing before us all, about to pace, about to stop, about to move, about to . . . “Three B’s.” He hums under his breath, pacing about. “I’ll let you guess the rest with truancy on my part speaking to the wiser,” He juts a fist into his side and swings his foot around to cross the other leg’s brown shoe. His brown shoe. Yeah, it’s not much of a casualty for a teacher to be in brown shoes, but Doc’s are . . . well, “pizzazed up”, as he says. There are laces and such, a sporty casual shoe nonetheless, right? The bow of the laces droops tiredly.
Doc takes the graded papers in his hands, washing up and down the edgy spine of the pile with rough fingers and a pinched smile. He shuffles through them. I’m sure all eyes are now shifting through each aisle to select to whom the A’s and B’s and so-on’s belong. But, on my part, my eyes leap onto the schoolboy of a professor, sticking his tongue out in desperation, brow furrowed, as he comes to the last one . . . a flummoxed look, which departs his face and lunges onto mine as my head tilts to his exasperation now dispersed.
“Hmph . . . must be with my [mumble mumble],” He feels his pockets just to make sure nothing’s out of place here since something most definitely fell short of perfect there.
“Trey, will you do the honors?” The Professor’s eyes dash to a mop-headed young man.
“Sure, Doc.”
Silence . . . otherwise.
My desk is fascinating—look at those knobs and grain waves. . . .
Shlip, cashlickt . . .
Trey’s hands empty, now finding their ways back to his pockets, stowed away for further non-use as he sits. Squeaking feet to the floor in front of him, slouching.
My desk . . . intriguing . . . empty.
No paper.
“Any questions, comments, concerns . . . jowls?” Doc playfully paces with one hand in a corduroy compartment of his pants.
He glances here. I look at my bare desk. He smiles in understanding, but there’s something seriously disconcerting with the way he does so . . . a way that makes my mouth unhinge a bit in inquiry.
Rain pours outside . . . curiously.
Corey, Bobby, and Sue huddle beside me, “A . . .”
“And, for thirty two?”
“I thought there was similar structure in ionic compositions for that . . . No?”
“Really? You got that?”
“Seriously . . . yeah . . . Hey—!”
“Hey, Sky!”
Oh shoot, they found me.
I jerk awake . . . numb from my curiosity.
“Yo!” I twist, aware.
“Sky, what did you get?” Ryky, slipping his paper into my eye-light, gasps, joining our group gladly.
His wandering eyes stray to his bloody test, all red with marks.
“Great, isn’t it?” Ryky laughs again.
“Oh man, what did you do? Heart surgery? Wow, Ryan. Seriously?” Corey baulks.
“Sky?”
“Oh, I—”
“Skyler . . .” Doc interrupts just as I pivot to match the former query.
I reroute and pause, my eyes ending up posed on Doc’s beckoning hand. My arms snap from the desk, and I walk leisurely to his desk as he rounds it to meet me with himself behind the slab of wood.
“Sir,” I respond half-heartedly . . . that kinda sounded like what a “yes” would do coming from my mouth.
“I gave your test to my aid to run copies if you don’t mind. He should be here shortly,” He mimics my stare as I hinge my palms on his woody desk and push forward to get all of the whisper he passes out to my ears. I lift my heels in anticipation, cocking my interested face as if posing a question.
He obliges, “An A.”
A smile.
A big, white smile under those huge eyes of his, crinkling in a crescent.
I mouth a “thank you” energetically, knock my bony knuckles on his dented desk and find my place in the line of the classroom.
Cora Lynn puts an honest hand on my shoulder, and I twist to the other side of the classroom . . . smile forming an “o” shape through my lips. She asks the question of the day. And, I’m cornered. I mean, what could I do? The boys haven’t had enough groaning today anyway. I nod my answer. And, yes! Groaning ensues.
“I can’t take it!”
“No, no, no . . . No. No!”
“Ev-ry tiiime!”
“Come on, Sky. Be fair.” Their faces can’t help but smirk, eyes rolling away like a roller coaster on steroids. The high fives come careening in.
“Nice job, S.” Bobby grins.
I start my acceptance speech . . . not without tinges of sarcasm splashed throughout like paint spots . . . a whispering voice. Then, their tests smack me in the head.
“Thank you! Thank you!” I laugh, arms outstretched to the ceiling and hair flurrying up like snowflakes whacked with a lawn mower.
A few seconds more and Doc’s on a tangent again. “Oh look . . . it might be sunny after all today.” He stands, bemused . . . looking outside from the tall windows, letting his hands fall behind his back in a knot.
“Ah . . . simply nice.” He tilts his head. “Turn to page seventy . . . seventy nine. And, we shall BEGIN all over with learning chemistry’s . . . uhm . . . kinematics.” He starts to grin his sheepish smile. “Oh, the PHYSICS of it!” He reaches a steady hand to the light-effuser . . . projector (he hates to call it a projector. Sorry, Doc, for the allusion.) . . . FLASH!
I hate these things . . . headache.

☂

. . . “And, that, my colleagues, is how you figure out the path of an atom by forces and breaks in the compositional vectors . . . unless of course you’re disinterested, MISTER THOMAS! MISTER THOMAS?!” CLAP CLAP CLAP . . . swat! And, Doc goes in for the kill . . . nails him.
Doc raises his eyebrows now to Thomas’s hesitancy to perk up, despite the movements that say he’s alive like the one wiping his eyes. Laughter sweeps around, but Thomas poses his head like the thinker, staring at the light-effuser like it’s too bright for him to see straight.
“Very nice. Now that we have the whole cavalry here, let’s take Rome.” Jokingly, Doc tilts his head to watch Thomas as he coos a response.
“I—uh—muh . . . doesn’t cut it, Mister Thomas. Pay ahhhhhhttteeeeeeeeennnshhhhhhion, Mister Thomas. Puh-leeeeease. And, here . . . we . . . go!” Doc turns and clicks his remote.
The door raps . . . flips open with a freshly dripping scene of the outside swinging in . . . sunlight lying behind the bed of dropped buckets of water.
The picture wraps arms around a tall, slender form . . . a strong silhouette. It’s holding a hood of a cover over its head. “Doc, paper.” The muscular arm lithely lifts a dozen sheets or so into view, sliding the door shut as he drops the hood. An organized mess of hair whips out.
“Ah, yes,” Doc spurts as if he’s just found his train of thought again and latched his cargo to it. “The winner and million dollar prize goes to Miss Sky!” Doc shuffles to collect and pass the test to myself, glares all around.
Abashed smile slides across my mouth.
The big red “A” on the top is circled with bloody ink.
But, none of it really registers. . . .
The gentleman standing in the sunlit doorway . . . he’s staring at me, his hand perched upon the desk of Doc, the clock ticking away the time that’s frozen to me. So peculiarly backlit because of the specters of windows lining the room, I can’t reach his face . . . Only . . . his ribbon lips smile.
A fuzz of hair catches the light on his head.
A smile smears a curl out of my mouth, and the figure’s arm raises to his neck, rubbing as Doc filters through the rest of the papers.
The tall frame slides himself to the door’s edge. I peel my eyes away so they can stick to the homework assignment Doc points to on the board with a snap from the screen and a, “Off you go, ladies and gents!”
The Professor whispers something to the character now back in my viewfinder. The door opens, the shutter registers as the camera aims . . . he looks . . . click. Eyes shut downward, open on the book in my fingers. My eyes jog back and forth. Did the picture take? Close . . . open . . . fuzzy . . . bad exposure time . . . sunlight okay though, a little flaky for the point and shoot velocity, but the subject emerges in the black room. Hair chestnut, streaks of light gold above darker strands of hazelnut. Eyes? Too blurry. Form—handsome. I smile. Sorry, it’s a girl thing to take a snapshot and analyze the motives of motions frozen . . . A shimmer of rainbow-dyed silhouettes, like ghost-like remains of the people in front of me, translucently paste themselves on my eyes. You know the feeling—you stare at something for so long that the silhouette of the thing or person stays on your shifting eyes for a time . . .
“Keep up the progress! I’ll see you all tomorrow.” Everyone except the ones by my side flee like lightning from a distraught cloud.
Doc packs up, makes contact with his aid, who opens the cherry-wood door in front of him. Turning, though, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye . . . possibly this last conflict of interest because now I’m scribbling on my paper.
I look up, pencil waving its end high in betwixt my bony fingers. Tooth meets lip.
Scene goes like this, quickly unraveling . . . Can we take it slow and broken down? Probably not, but here goes nothing . . .
Doc pats the young man’s broad shoulder and says something that makes the olive tones of his skin brighter under blue (?) eyes, white teeth diving into the room. He looks at me over Doc’s low shoulder . . . He’s tall . . . older?
The board seems interesting, doesn’t it? Left-behind erasure marks make their paved ways across each other, chalky films of plain trails glazed over that green surface.
Pencil flips . . . Write something, fingers.
Doc or someone flips the door. Footsteps.
Ku-licksh, ku-lush, ku-licksh . . .
A shadow.
Meek fingers poke into my downward gaze, which slowly travels from his taut forearm to his sky blue sleeves . . . then, meets a bronze neck and gorgeous blue eyes.
He murmurs . . . something . . .
Didn’t catch it; did you?
My mouth’s slightly open.
Oh gosh.
“What?” I squeak.
No wonder my nickname’s Mouse on soccer teams past . . . still sticks.
“Yep,” honey drops a perfect tone—warm, low, and sweetly antique, “They are . . . beautiful . . .” his white smile fades behind two ribbon lips as he purses them and backs up, harnessing my attention, “Your green eyes.” His deep blue pools wash into my startled pair.
Who saw this coming?
Am I trembling?
The pencil whips like a crazy dolphin fin in an ocean of raging waves, gripped in my jarring grasp that would yank the top off a bottle of strawberry jam.
Okay . . . what do I do now?
“Oh,” that’s all I can manage to put together.
Everything’s so . . . something . . . so one after the other, kinda like organized chaos . . . everything’s flashing with bells and whistles.
Yikes.
Doc calls, “Aren’t you coming, Shaun?” from outside.
Saved by Doc. God bless Doc. Thank you, Doc.
The figure in front of me stares, backing away slowly in a covert kind of way, trying to retrieve information without the victim noticing. “What’s your name?” His lips barely inch up and down.
My eyes light, asking him to stay, “Sky.”
Up, then down, his tone flows, “I’m . . . Shaun.” He smiles as if hearing his redundancy. He tilts his head.
A crooked white smile spills as he knocks into a desk . . . a charming laugh from him as he recovers.
A tinge of red in the snapshot of his face . . . just a splash. He’s poised, though.
And, he’s gone.
Tiny cat calls ring out as the door snaps shut. I pull Bob out from under my desk, realizing a hand yanking at my shoulder. The jacket’s hood I’m wearing flops up and down as I stand.
“Who was that, huh?”
“He sure has it for you, yeah?”
“Yeah?”
All of them, even Sue, yanks at me with her words.
“I have no idea. . . . He said his name’s Shaun. And, this is the first time I’ve—” ever seen him before?
“Sky, come on!” Sue chants, whipping her purse around as she twirls in front of us.
“Hey, you coming to the Post tonight?” Ryan quickly changes the subject for me. Thank you!
“Yeah, of course I’ll be there! I might be from Pennsylvania, but I’m not one of thooose.” The words spill out happily, skipping along into the sunshine as we all go out, the sidewalk slightly slimed with puddles still sinking into dryer places of pebbles.
“Bye, guys!” I reply to their pivoting selves as the three of them wind away, Corey still by my side.
“So, do we HAVE to do all this studying? I mean, is it absolutely necessary?” His tone jumps octaves at the end, left eye creasing as his crooked smile unfolds.
A laugh, “Well, not if you want to fail . . .”
Yes, we all know that student plus dying equals studying, but come on, the library’s not that far of a walk from here.