The Unnatural

Gil Scott-Heron was right. The revolution would not be televised, but a lot of people thought it would be, and sat on their couches clutching their bags of chips and cold liter tall sodas, sipping on beer, and crying corruption when their team didn’t do well in the big game. They argued politics they didn’t understand beyond the latest broadcast and swam through cinematic daydreams in contrasts of cyan and orange, distracted from the windows and doors and the people who had voices they didn’t want to hear because they’d not put down the remote long enough to sit in the silence of contemplation—the haunting still place where the sound of their own reflections occupied their minds and critical thought spun the keys of their freedom, waiting for them to arrive.

All the while, in the empty streets where kids didn’t play anymore, and in busy stores full of people listening to their devices and tuning out those around them, canceling reality faster than celebrities with misdeeds, the air changed. It thickened and thinned, cooled and heated, and before anyone could notice the sizzling in the sky and the tickling in their throats from breathing in, it was already done and gone. Laws and rules changed that day, but that didn’t do a bit of good for what came in the heavy rolling clouds passing through the sky and the burning rain that soon followed.

Colin Watson stared into the downpour, droplets catching on his lashes like tears, and maybe a few of them were as he watched the movers pack up everything he’d loved and loaded it onto a truck where he wouldn’t see it again for days. Louisa waved an arm, balancing Amelia on her hip, and shouting from the porch as the poncho-donning movers-for-cheap ignored her behind curtains of rain and under plastic-wrapped furniture made into portable, momentary shelters from the storm. She scrunched her hair in frustration and turned her attention to Colin, standing in the middle of the yard, basketball in his hands and his hoodie soaked through to his skin.

“Would you come in and change before we get the clothes packed up?” she hollered to her son, anger licking up her words like a flame through kindling. When he didn’t move, still staring hopelessly at the truck, she stomped to the banister, leaned across the bushes, and called again. “Colin Francis Watson!”

His head snapped around, eyes bulging as he stared at her. The ringing in his ears at last subsided, his body was colder than numb, and improvement he considered than how it had been in days. He curled his fingers against the basketball and stared at it; the rain running down his nose in rivers, and knew in an instant he’d not been crying after all. He breathed in the wet and petrichor and blew it back out, trotted across the yard, heavy-footed, thumped up the handful of steps to the porch. He didn’t bother himself with saying anything to his mother or looking at her as he trudged by, stalking through the near-empty house to find what once was his room turned barren, save a box or two and the suitcase for travel and a myriad half-filled donation bins by the naked window.

He grabbed the suitcase and dragged it to where his bed had been, opened it, and peeled off his wet shirt. It slapped against the floor, a splash of water streaking the floorboards, marred by his childhood. He grabbed the first dry shirt he could find and tugged it over his head, staining it with wet lines from his shaggy hair. He cursed under his breath and ruffled the messy mop before coming to a pained stop, staring at the pile of wet clothes, the numbness returning with the static ringing as if all the world was about to implode.

“Colin,” his mom stepped into the doorway, finding him frozen in silence again. He’d been this way since the movers showed up with the rain and the reality of their circumstances became absolute. “I know you don’t like this, but your grandpa said this house is really nice, and it’s on a lake in a small community and—”

“Why does it have to rain?” His voice came, half-muted by mumbling.

Louisa breathed out, exasperated by his melodrama. “Sometimes it just rains, Colin.”

His jaw tightened as he swallowed, the hollows of his cheeks deepening for only a moment. “Why didn’t it rain when Dad died?” His fist clenched around the handle of his suitcase. “Or during the funeral?”

“I don’t know,” Louisa said, setting Amelia on the floor, letting the younger child wander to the small box of toys left behind for the trek. She brushed off, straightening her shirt. “I ask myself that all the time, and you know what? The only answer I ever get is: because it didn’t. Life isn’t like a movie. You can’t passively watch it go by. You have to be active and participate.”

“What does that have to do with Dad?”

Louisa smiled, humbled, as she folded her arms and leaned on the door frame. Every thought raced back to the man she’d loved and lost, who reflected in her son more than he yet realized. “Your dad never took anything for granted. He didn’t let the world go by without being part of it. He was a force of change. And you know, I think he’d be excited about this move. It’s an opportunity. Rain or not.”

“Dad wouldn’t have wanted to move.” He snatched the sopping hoodie from the floor and shoved by his mother, headed for the kitchen. His father was many things: an activist, a self-starter, a warrior of the people, a dreamer. But he was happy living in the first house he’d ever owned, the house he’d renovated when Colin was ten, and his cousin Maggie came to live with them for a while; the house he dreamed would be the only home his children would know right up to the day he died. All his love lived in the walls, and unlike Colin, Amelia was too young to recognize it. She’d grow up never knowing he’d lived, had been in his life for three short years, or what that house had been to her brother and their mom. The worst part, he realized as he tossed the wet shirt into a bag, was not Amelia’s inevitable ignorance, but that in time, everything his father was would be little more than a fading dream. An echo of a lost time. One day, he’d forget what his voice sounded like and how he smelled, but he wouldn’t forget the rain, the static, and the numbness consuming him with each passing second because that moment was when change came with boxes and rain.

Colin yanked the bag shut and tied it off in a tight knot. A tingle raced down his forearms and through his fingers. The bag gurgled, churning on its own. Pop, glup! A bubble surged from the top and spilled over the sides. Water splashed onto the floor. The bag remained in his hand, the hood of the shirt caught at the top where his fingers gripped. His breath caught hard in his throat, his thumb sliding over the dry fabric. A surge of roaring sensations he couldn’t name coursed his veins, a scream and cry locked in his chest, but nothing came as he watched the puddle spin.

“Colin?” Her footsteps stopped short as she came into the kitchen.

He looked over, and he knew in a drop of his heart to his feet, the horror on her face was because she saw it, too.

Delete

Louisa gripped the steering wheel, keeping closer than usual to the moving van. Her jaw was tight, and periodically she checked the rear-view mirror as Amelia quietly played on her tablet. Then her attention shifted to Colin. Her gaze burned into him, but he made no effort to acknowledge it and remained fixed on staring out the window.

The dark sky had not lightened even in the deluge, and it seemed as though there was no intention for it to let up. Colin’s hand moved to cover his mouth as thoughts spun wildly in his head. There had never been a moment in his life when he’d seen water do that. Maybe there was a dip in the floor they’d never noticed. Maybe it was a ghost. He wanted to believe the latter.

“I didn’t expect it to work again,” she said from the front.

Colin looked up, confused but silent.

“The tablet,” Louisa said, motioning to Amelia. “You have a real talent for figuring things out. After it went down the stairs and the screen cracked, I thought it was done for this time.” Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel. This wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. The real conversation stung like thorns in the back of her throat, one she didn’t know how to start.

“I didn’t do it,” he said flatly.

“I didn’t say you di—

“Mom.”

Louisa looked in the mirror. Colin’s lips pressed into a tight line, sinking steadily into a frown, the way it had when the funeral director had come to speak with him. The corners of his eyes tightened to hide the redness from tears gathering in a threat of revealing more than he could process. She breathed a sigh and sank back into her seat. “I know you didn’t, Colin. I don’t know what happened. Maybe—maybe it was static, or electromagnetism, or something,” she flippantly waved a hand, “but I don’t know. It’s better if we just take it as a sign that it was time to leave. There’s an entire future ahead of us. Everything is going to be alright. You’ll see.”

His gaze fell, then his head dropped forward, his hair still damp. He wiped his nose with his arm and sniffed, hiding the onset of another crying spell. Some days it felt like he wouldn’t ever stop. Even when no tears came, his body was heavy and rattled in hollow reverberations with a scream he couldn’t quite get out. “I just want to go home.”

“We’re almost there,” she said softly from the front.

But it wasn’t home. It was just a house they were moving into.