Stolen

The time has slowed down, and so has the rain. I can see through every drop, I can hold it, stop it from touching the ground if I want. I decide to stay a little longer in this gazebo, for this rain is no ordinary one. As I gaze through the droplets, I look into another world, memories trapped right at the center of every sphere, images so clear that I seem to be losing the sense of reality.

Everything else however, seems to be running at its normal pace. Most faces that pass me by don’t turn back, and the ones that do, are cloaked by the closeness of my vision to the drops. A peculiar ricochet from each droplet suppresses every syllable of theirs.

An irrefutable desire takes over me, drowns me and itself into one of the few drops right in front of my eyes. There’s no ground in here, a rather mixed, combined sensation of walking underwater and flying. Time once again seems to have returned at its ‘normal’ speed or maybe it’s just an illusion as I’m inside this droplet that appears too tired to descend.

I go over, in, out, in again, and out again from drops to drops, memories to memories. The times from when I could have blown away the sun, to when I would have pulled the moon a little closer. From when I would climb up myself and scream from the top of my head, to when I would crawl down under my foot and hide silently.

I try to hold on to some moments, literally hold them and slice through some others with a butter knife. But I end up turning the diamonds into puddles, the former ones, and somehow two smaller drops falling at my feet from the later.

Just as I begin to think whether I should leave, comes a drop and I’m pulled in without any self-control whatsoever. This can’t be. I’m looking at a figure just standing and starting out in open at the falling rain. Another figure appears into the picture. It appears to be looking straight at me. I’m sure, as they’re the only eyes that I can see.

The figure holds up its hand, shapes it somewhat close to a claw, and starts waving into the rain. I witness a rearrangement of drops, it causes them to hold up, rise and fall slower or faster, virtually defying all that is known as gravity. It says: “you have been stolen from the time scale”, and one of the pillars, closest to the figure bubbles up, splashes down into the water underneath, as if it was made of water and wrapped up in a fragile envelope.

The figure turns right, the claw, the waving, defying gravity, and another writing appears: “Not to be bound by anyone, you have chosen to bind yourself, here”. Another large splash, the entire gazebo quakes, but holds itself through.

The figure appears to be rushing, looks back at me, the other me, staring at the rain, and then looks down. I see that we are not too far from hitting the puddle at the bottom. After all, the drop was falling at whatever speed, it had to hit the ground. I look up again, another scribble for me: “I know you from the past, and you’ll know me in the future”. The entire gazebo now stands on one central pillar. Wait… not the entire, one half falls down.

The figure steps away from the swamped area, and moves close to me, the other me, who is still staring in the rain, ignorant of what is happening. As the other half is about to turn into water and splash down, the figure starts running out, towards me. It splashes into me, pushing me out of the drop.

I’m dry. The gazebo still stands. The time and rain however keep changing their speed, high, low, high again, up to the normal and back to slow. I think of stepping out, I decide to let go of the control, to let the rain fall on my skin, to let the diamonds hurt and flow through me.

The mere thought causes the pillar upright to ‘bubble up and splash down’. And then the others, in the same sequence ‘bubble up and splash down’. I decide not to walk out, not right now, to let the roof ‘bubble up and splash down’ on me. And so it does.

Time and rain return to their normal speed. Most faces that pass me by, turn back.

They see me, hear me. I observe them, listen to them.