Birth Day [Fiction]

Source: Suburban Night Rain by ZoltanForgefire on DeviantArt

I sit with my back to the fence. I feel cold. As the cars pass, I feel the suck of the wind they leave behind, pulling at me. I can sense the clouds lurking again. The horizon seems to be blacker than before. 

I turn my head. Familiar sounds float towards me. I can see the shadows of dusk growing more intense. 

A blackbird sings its twilight song, but it seems out of sync with the atmosphere crowding in. A sound like thunder rumbles towards me. Or it might be a large, heavy object scraping across a wooden floor. I hunch my shoulders against the impact.

Lightning streaks across the rooftops to my left and my eyes snap involuntarily towards it. I immediately look away. I hold my breath, expecting the sudden clap of thunder, which doesn’t come. Instead, a distant, muffled groan takes its place, like a fugitive, hiding, hoping. 

I am not old like my grandfather and I will never be my grandfather. But that has always been my mother’s promise to me.

‘The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,’ she would say, a look of certainty on her face.

‘What does that mean?’ I used to ask, across years of yesterdays, but I know now. That apple isn’t me.

I wonder at my memory as a jet of wind rattles through the tree on the nature strip. Or it might be a shriek of fear … I don’t know.

The light is fading eerily but I notice that less than the intemperate slapping of rain on the Colourbond. It masks something else I can vaguely hear. It’s a sound of a different kind, one that makes me duck my head and cover it with my arms.

The front fence, made of grey concrete blocks, makes it easy to stay distant, to remain at a loss, stubbornly unknowing. I know that when the full force of the storm arrives, I will need to move but for now, it is enough. The raindrops are like lead shot sprayed from the roiling mouth of the cloud that now looms above me.

Something shatters in the house behind me. Or perhaps it’s the heavens breaking open to let the torrent of water and battering wind scarify me with its unpredictable violence, its un-asked-for attack, it’s paradoxical cleansing.

I find myself suddenly standing, thinking I’ll turn and run to escape that storm. Instead, I sit on the fence, my hands cupping the minutely jagged edge. I feel the rough hardness through my clothes.

I am twenty-three today and I’ve been sitting on this fence ever since I can remember.

I think: Today isn’t yesterday. I say: ‘I’m not three.’ Then, I bellow: ‘NOT THREE …!’

I feel something I had thought was dead, rise and hammer.
I turn towards the sounds of battle in the house.
I feel the storm gathering its strength.

I have become slick with justice.