The alarm clock started to beep at exactly half-past seven, as it always does. That particular day however, the alarm rudely interrupted a pleasant dream Sade was having. She couldn't remember what happened or even who was in it, but she knew it was a nice dream, which is something she hadn't had in a while. At least, not since the accident.
"Tch. Why do alarms always go off at the best part?", she grunted, as the deafening sound continued.
Annoyed, she reached out to try to silence the damn thing, and after what seemed like a forever of flailing her arms around her bedside table, she finally managed to switch off the alarm.
"Mmm...peace and quiet...", she murmured, almost pleased with herself.
Sleeping in for a few extra minutes probably wouldn't hurt, she decided. It was a weekend after all.
Fiercely hoping that she could still continue the dream she was having, she then snuggled back under the covers, trying to find that perfect comfy spot. She soon realised though, that the post-alarm 'peace & quietness' she had been expecting didn't happen. She scratched her right cheek subconsciously and sighed. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that last night's weather forecast had been wrong.
Looks like the picnic's not gonna happen after all, she mused as she slowly opened her eyes. When her vision was well-adjusted, she turned to look outside her window for a few seconds. Funnily enough, she didn't feel all that disappointed.
Sade slowly forgot her plan to sleep in as she continued to watch the rain falling outside her room. She got tired of lying down after a while, so she eventually sat up and did a small stretch. She gently gathered her hair into a tiny bunch and used a light blue hairband to tie her hair - the one she only wears at home, because its fluffy bits were already starting to wear out. Despite how it looks, she loved because it was given to her by her pa.
The last thing he gave me, she remembered sadly.
Before she continued to reminisce about her past (it always happens, especially in this weather), she quickly made sure the hairband was tight enough in her hair. She shifted into a chair next to the windowsill, and somehow became mesmerised by the sights and sounds of the rain.
There's just something magical about it...
Perhaps it's the rhythmic pit-pattering sound, like a continuous flow of water - calm and sure. Or maybe it's the cute, round droplets of water that somehow appear outside her glass windows that gives her that good feeling; stubbornly staying in place, no matter how heavy the rain gets. Or perhaps, she considered as she looked down at the road, it's the puddles on the streets that make her feel this way.
She loved puddles. She even had one she particularly liked, on the street in front of her house. She loved them because no matter how much water splashes out when vehicles drive through them, the rainwater always creeps back in, creating another pool of water. It's like a neverending cycle, which is something she can somewhat relate to. After all, it's always the rain that reminds her of painful memories from the past, and only rain can make her feel better - nothing and no one else.
Ah, stop all this sentimental nonsense, she scolded herself.
Feeling defeated, she breathed into the glass to form an irregular-shaped vapour, and slowly drew a smiley face on it. Just as she finished the face with a smile, she heard someone calling out her name.
"Sade!! SADE!!! Are you awake???", a female voice called out from downstairs.
She sighed. "Yeees!!", she cried out in response.
She walked closer to her door and opened it just enough so that she and her ma didn't have to continue screaming at each other.
Now that she thought about it, her ma rarely shouted like that - especially not this early. Sade began to wonder what all the fuss was about.
"What is it, ma?", she asked, softer this time.
Her mother didn't respond. Sade strained her ear and realised that her ma was talking with someone, but she couldn't hear the other person's voice.
What kind of person would come to another person's house this early?, she wondered.
"Sade, SADE! Come down now hun! Hurry!!!", her ma shouted again from the bottom of the stairs. She sounded almost frantic.
Slightly worried, Sade opened her door cautiously and walked down the hallway almost stealthily. As she reached the top of the staircase, she heard her ma sobbing, and then laughing.
WHAT is going on?..., she pondered, instantly losing all her sleepiness. Without thinking, she ran downstairs as fast as her feet could carry her. At that point, she couldn't tell if her heart was beating like mad, or if it had stopped beating entirely.
As soon as she reached the bottom step, Sade could hear her ma's laughter again... but she was almost scared to look in the dining area, where the sounds were coming from.
She could hear her mom and... a familiar voice. A sweet voice she hadn't heard in years.
Is he... who I think he is?
"If this is a dream", she whispered, "please at least let me see him before my alarm clock goes off...'
After counting to three, Sade cautiously walked into the area her ma and the mysterious person was in. The first sight she saw was her ma leaning on the fridge; her cheeks were wet, but she had a large smile, the kind that Sade hasn't seen in a long time. Sade just realised how much she missed that gorgeous smile of hers.
A familiar chuckle then caught Sade's attention. It came from the direction of the person her ma had been so enraptured with.
When Sade saw who the mysterious person was, her jaw dropped.
"P- pa?...", she stuttered, still unsure if he was real.
Both her parents turned around to see their daughter gaping at them like a goldfish, too stunned to do or say anything else.
Her pa grinned when he saw how stiff she became, and staggered towards her. She looked at him up and down, and gasped when she saw a prosthetic leg under his left knee. She didn't know how to react. She was about to help, but he motioned at her that he didn't need any.
Sade bit her bottom lip hard, watching her pa continue struggling towards her. Unsteadily, but surely. Seeing him in such a way unconciously made her eyes water - not out of sympathy, but out of relief. She quickly registered the way her father looked at that moment - his wet hair (he hated umbrellas so he probably walked here without one), the towel around his neck (which was longer on one side, as he always wears it), his face (which had more scars than she remembered).
Yes, it's most certainly him: this is her pa who she hasn't seen in years.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realise that he was already in front of her until he poked her left cheek, startling her. He gave her his smile that she thought she' would never see again, and extended his arms around her, signalling that she should be prepared for his signature bearhug.
Without a second's notice, she hugged him tight, hoping she wouldn't wake up to find it had all been a dream. It was like a hungry tiger lunging at a prey it had been starving for -- fierce and desperate.
After a while, Sade's ma teased that she should probably let go so that her poor pa can sit down.
"His prosthetics aren't the expensive type, so they're not comfortable to stand in for too long", her ma joked.
After a few more seconds, Sade reluctantly let go of her pa and pulled him to a chair. She looked straight at him - not knowing whether to smile, cry or laugh. Her pa just laughed and looked at his wife, half-amused, half-concerned.
"Pa, why are you here?", Sade finally blurted out.
He blinked for a moment, and then his lips broke into a smile. "I assume you know about my fall four years ago?", he asked his daughter carefully.
She nodded, paying full attention.
He adjusted his sitting position and continued. "It was raining heavily that day, so it wasn't surprising that I fell down that cliff. None of my team members found me because it was too dark and dangerous... truthfully even I still think it's a miracle I survived", he stopped, as if to recollect his thoughts. "I was found by the locals a few days after, but I was in a coma that lasted a few months. I didn't have any ID on me, so nobody knew who I was or where I was from, or how I even got there. Most importantly, they didn't know who to call to inform about my situation."
Sade's ma poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him. He winked at her, causing her to giggle. Sade wasn't sure if it was sweet or gross - probably both - but she continued watching him.
"Anyway, when I finally came to, I returned home to find that you two had already moved. It must've been hard for you two these past few years...", he stopped to look at his wife with a sad expression, and she smiled as she looked at the floor. "In any case, I've been around the country since then, but I couldn't trace you. Nobody seemed to know where you were".
He gulped down half of his mug's content before he continued. "I almost gave up, to be honest. I only came here by accident, because one of the guys from my last mission lives around the corner. I was driving to his place a couple of days ago when I saw someone that looked like my Sade lying on the grass on the front yard -- a bigger version of her, of course", he rummaged through her hair. In the past she would've complained, but now she simply grinned.
"I was dead sure that it was my Sade that I saw, so Dan and I checked with some of the other neighbors to confirm if it was really you and Anna who live here... and here I am". He downed the rest of his coffee, marking the end of his story.
"But you could've waited till later in the day to give me the shock of my life", his wife muttered. She buried her smile with her mug, hoping he didn't see it.
He chuckled. "But I wanted to be the first thing you see today, dear." Anna blushed at this, as he got up and slowly walked towards her. He kissed her on the forehead, and brushed his fingers across her cheeks.
"Happy birthday to me", he said softly. His wife cocked an eyebrow.
"But... it's not your birthday", she said, surprised.
"Hey, it's the day I came back from the dead, remember?", he cheekily replied. Before she could respond, he felt a tug on his shirt. He turned to see a pair of pleading eyes looking at him.
"Pa, can we go out for a second?", she quietly asked.
"Out?", he looked out into the rain. "But it's raining, dear".
"I know. Just for a second... please?"
Her ma looked at her strangely, but her pa finally nodded. Immediately Sade dragged him towards their garden, without even bothering to take off their house slippers. Standing in the rain with their feet dirty from the mud, she closed her eyes, faced skywards, and finally broke into a huge smile - her first real one since she had heard that her pa died.
The perplexed man and the thoughtful daughter continued to stand there as the rain continued to pour, like it would never stop. A moment later, a car drove past her house, and a child in the passenger seat stared at Sade and her pa with bulging eyes - probably curious about why they're standing in the rain.
Sade didn't care.
Eventually the car drove through her favourite puddle, splashing out almost all the water it had in it. She quietly watched as the rain filled it again. When the puddle started to overflow, she looked at her pa and squeezed him tight.
"I think we should have a picnic to celebrate your birthday, pa", she finally said, out of the blue. Her confused pa just laughed and nodded.
Anna quietly watched them from their doorstep. She held back her tears as her husband wrapped his arm around their daughter, and walked back towards their house.
Right before she closed the door, Sade gazed at the puddle on the street, still over-brimming with rainwater.
"Thank you for filling me up again, rain", she said softly, and slowly pushed the door close.
- The End -
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A/N: This is a project thought up by my junior in college, Daniel Azere (I call him Ben tho, I can't fully remember why). Out of boredom, I wrote on my FB status that I missed writing, and he suggested we write something, anything, under the theme of 'rain'. I started writing this that very night, but it took me several days to edit, redraft and finally publish this.
Like Ben, I find rainy weather rather romantic. However I gotta admit that I might have been influenced to think this because in Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon (one of my favouritest mangas of all time), weather was often used to show a change in mood/atmosphere, and in the series, dewy/rainy weather tends to make the characters think of the past (and about their love lives, amusingly). So... yeah. Heheh.
Btw, do you like the name Sade (pron. Saa-deh)? It means 'rain' in Finnish. I really like it :)
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little story. Have a great day, folks! :)
Time taken: roughly 3 days.