Ohio Spiderwort
from Wild Thoughts: A Floral Guide to Feeling by Garrett Huon
The rain is not gentle. It comes in at a rush with big, fat drops falling from the sky. The evening falls without notice. The clouds had been so dark and thick and expansive, it was impossible to tell when the sun went down.
He lays in the darkness of his bedroom, the curtains pulled to the side so he could see each splatter against the glass. Little bursts that run and flow toward the ground and disappear into the grass.
On his side, he loses himself in the heavy thrum, the solid vibrations, made by the rain. It fills the room through the walls, pooling onto the floor and rising, rising, rising, until he’s floating in a pool with all his pillows and blankets. The world is tinted blue—dark like overly saturated sugar syrup. There is no sting or cold or ache. He doesn’t take a breath even as he is submerged.
The rhythm of the rain is dull now, but everything he feels now is so much more. The rain has turned into pellets breaking into the surface tension of his body and blooming through his chest, his arms, his legs.
Underneath the noise is a calm that swallows him whole. A quiet left in the space between each ripple. He can’t tell if he is still floating or if he has just dissolved completely in a swarm of bubbles that will never pop.
The rain stops when morning comes. The water drains out through the windows and the floorboards, escaping his room without hesitation. He is left heavy and wet. His pants sag on his hips. The sweater he wears weighs down on his shoulders. He stands there soaked to the bone.