Rain and Memories

The first drop fell after what seemed to be an eternity of waiting. As it ran from her shoulder to her elbow a chill crawled up her spine and then fell back down her body. She sat quietly on the roof, her dark thighs flat against her chest, her toned arms wrapped around her legs, and her chin sat perfectly nestled between her knees. The rain increased in size and speed falling silently a first and then turning into a raging thunder storm. Lightning flashed all around her, but she remained still and noiseless. Her hair stuck against her arms and back. She stared into the placid streets, a person occassionaly running from the Tavern into Thallow Flats. The rain began to subside and slowly turned into a drizzle and then it stopped as the sun began to make his ascent into the day. Alana sat on the roof of her home soaking wet waiting for the sun to shake off the rain. She had expected something to change, for the rain to rinse away the pain and the fear. Nothing was different; she was still angry, wistful, and timid. Alana stretched her legs out dragging her heels across the rough cement. Her knees cracked as she stretched her entire body, laying flat, arching her back with her arms pushing the air above her head. Alana lay there, staring at the gray sky with cleaves of blue shoving their way through the clouds. The sun poked his head over the horizon and announced the beginning of day. She rose with the sun, stretching each individual muscle until she was standing, flexing her calves and thighs. Alana sauntered over to the edge of the roof staring at the ground intently. She stared down at Barnaby's house and the lot in front of it wondering what this world was like thirty years ago. She had heard rumors but none of them conjured an image that was detailed enough for her. She heard the door to the roof open. A pair of strong arms wrapped themself around her waist and pulled her backwards, she laced her finger into his and leaned her head back against his chest.

He rested his chin on her shoulder and whispered, "I love you Alana."

The cement cracked, and a rush of fire came from the earth. Alana screamed and jumped back watching the flames throw themself into the air. Small hands and tiny faces accompanied by the screeches of young voices poured out of her memory and into the fire in front of her. The heat enveloped her body striping it of the moistures from the rain. She pulled herself up from the roof and jogged over to the edge where she stared down at the smoldering pyre. The crackling of wood burning filled her ears as tears blocked her eyes. The crashing of old man Barnaby's house resounded between Thallow Flats and the other buildings. Alana watched as the tail end of the house fell to the ground in it's majestic last stand. She stood there watching the lot burn out, as the memories of her past floated away from her.

Nightmares

After spending the majority of the evening with Jason in her apartment, Alana finally climbed into bed and curled up against her pillows. The thoughts that had been finally relieved of their corners in the brain were too much for her to handle, too much for her to comprehend. She allowed her mind to wander away from the night and into other places.

The evening wind breezed through her thick black hair, as the approaching night gently carressed her shoulders and back. Her long tanned legs wrapped around the thick dark body under her as Alana leaned down urging her forward. From over the dune she could see him standing there with his kind loving eyes beckoning her home. As she urged Amani to move faster, her father's figure seemed to fall backwards into the sand. Alana dug her bare heels deeper into Amani's sides begging her to reach the fading figure before he disappeared. Orange flames flicked up into the air and laughter filled Alana's ears. A group of dark horses and their masters took flight into the distant dunes of her beloved desert. Her small tribe flooded in flames, some of the houses beginning to burn out some still roaring. Amani raced on through the lightening sand and came to a halt at the base of dancing flames consuming the final home Alana's family lived in. She saw their small hands pounding on the window she couldn't break as they were being burned alive. Her hands throbbed as she banged on the window. She listened to their tiny voices cry out to her for help. Then the hands stopped pounding and slipped down the glass in their last movements. Alana raised her head to the dark starry sky and screamed in anguish.

The scream jolted Alana from her nightmare. She was sweating and tears flooded from her eyes and down her face. Her entire body shook with anger and fright. Alana pulled the blankets closer to her face covering her entire body and brought her knees to her chest. The faces she saw in her nightmare had been so distorted in pain, she hadn't seen them since that night. Alana had forgotten the small hands and their screeching.

"My past is haunting me everywhere I go! Am I not allowed to be happy? Is that it?" Her brain screamed at whatever force controlled the universe.

Some hours later she fell out of bed. In the dead of night she climbed the remaining flights of stairs that seperated her from the roof. She let the still wet air seep into her skin.

"Rain is on it's way."

She turned smiling a full giggling smile into her room, the time with Jason had reduced her to an excited teenager who had just receied her first kiss. As she half-ran half-skipped into her room, she laughed out loud for the first time in almost three weeks. She threw open her drawer and grabbed her journal. Alana heard a loud engine rev and looked out her window. There he sat on his motorcycle looking like a modern day prince in shining armor. She curled up in her favorite chair and wrote in her journal feverishly for nearly an hour. Her elegant scrawl flowed across the page unveiling every though that screamed into her conscious. Alana closed the journal with a half smile and waltzed into her kitchen to fix herself some lunch. She made a simple roast beef and cheese sandwich with a small vinegerette salad. She threw her jacket on and went outside, the sky seemed more ocean like than it ever head, the grass was greener, and the town looked better. She had a sudden inclination to clean the town and make it look beautiful like the old man, she thought his name was Barnaby or something, in the house next door used say it was. He had apparently owned some huge thing in the town and it was suppossedly a stunning and highly-desired place, but it had turned into a decrepit dusty cheap place. She walked down the sidewalk and all around the town, noticing the new Roots shop and the Rare Bookstore, neither of which she had ever been in. Alana opened the door to the Rare Bookstore and peeked in. The dust-covered book lined the walls and sat in piles on the floor. she tip-toed around the piles occasionally seeing things that sparked her interest. Alana spent her afternoon gazing at different books and basking in the sun. She curled up in the sun on the floor of the boostore and read the dairy of a young girl from the late 1800's. Her tale of never finding love saddened Alana, but did not erase her smile. As Alana returned to her apartment she looked up and saw the silouette framed by the sinking sun; it looked like an angel. She took it as a sign that what she was feeling was right. Allah was with her after all.

Pastel Crimson

All she could see was one of his pastel eyes, the striaght line of his nose, and his small thinly crafted lips as they approached the foaming glass. She watched as he considered drinking and then as he set it down looking disgusted with the idea of beer. Night after night she had wandered into the dingy wretched bar with no other intent than to watch this curious man, who seemed to do nothing but suffer. Alana could not understand why, she had seen the younger woman glide up to his shoulder whisper something and then saunter away, a deep twinge of jealousy washed over her and then disappeared. In a moment of desperate desire she stalked out of the decrepit bar and meandered towards her own apartment building with her head down and her arms crossed.
Alana swept past a man older than herself yet not considered old, maybe middle-aged. As she moved past him she slowed dwn to what seemed like a crawl, she didn't generally see people when she returned at three or four in the morning. Their eyes connected and the five seconds they spent passing eachother lagged on for an enternity. One of his rough mechanic oil stained hands glanced her arm and she jumped away from him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you." He reached out to her and then swiftly drew his hand back.
"No.. I..I don't know.. know why I jumped. Please, forgive me." She stammered, eyes cast down twisting her foot on the cheap tile.
"Name my.. I mean my name..," he blushed a deep crimson, "My name is Raymond."
Alana lifted her head and stared this scared man in the eyes, the frankness of her gesture made him glance away.
"My name is Alana." her thick middle-eastern accent coated her words, "It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too," his words tumbled out of his mouth and he seemed to want to drag them back. Alana smiled and turned away, leaving Raymond slightly dumb-founded at his momentary extrovertedness.
Next Day:
The early morning sun poured into her small room as she lifed her sleep leaden eyes. She stretched her lithe body and arched her back like a cat. Alana rolled out of bed and let her brown bare feet rest on the frigid floor before she walked to her batheroom. Cold water splashed into the bottom of the shower. She stuck her hand in and then jerked it out, realizing she had not turned on the hot water. The handle squeaked as she turned it and the water tank began to whine.
She stepped out of the shower into the freezing bathroom and wrapped herself in a towel. She made a quick egg and then walked out of her apartment. The hall was deserted as it usually was at eight in the morning, but the foryer was bustling with people, if one would call four people bustling. The runners were up as always leaving or returning but never noticing anyone else, they were caught in their own world just as Alana was caught in hers. She breezed through part of the town without noticing anyone or anything. Everyone was a blur that suddenly slowed to a crawl when they passed her, all of them seemed to lock eyes with her, but it never made her uncomfortable or scared. She slipped into the community garden and closed the gate. Alana removed her shoes and her jacket and dropped them on the dark earth near the entrance. She skipped over to the swing and plopped herself down on it. This was the only truely enjoyable part of her day, swinging on the garden swing like she saw the children doing later in the afternoon. The wind whipped through her thick hair and wrapped itself around her skin. She swung high enough to see over the ivy covered fence, and for a brief second she saw the familiar frame of a man she felt she knew but had never talked to. Her heart faltered and a squeak leaped from her throat as her foot caught the ground and she was launched onto the ground. As she gathered herself, the door swung open and blue alarmed eyes stared at her.

The desert, the Tavern, and home

As she arrived at her dingy apartment building from her night excursion to the Tavern, Alana stood and stared at the lit windows and the bland door, remembering how she arrived there four years ago.
She was merely a child with no first-hand experience in a world of dark and dangerous people. The second daughter in a family of five children, Alana was the youngest. She grew up in the deserts of Arabia. In her secluded desert, Alana was considered beautiful and mysterious. Her eyes were all that were seen by anyone other than her family, but they had a piercing thoughtfulness about them. Alana was well-educated and sent to school as a young girl, one of the few women in her tribe to be sent to school ever. Alana's father doted on her and called her "أعين غامضة" or "mysterious eyes." Surrounded by warm sand and fiery eyes, it was a paradise not meant to last.
Upon her arrival in a new complicated place, where her English was far from perfect, Alana wondered how Allah could do this to her. A place where she was expected to live on her father's money that had been left to her after the ferocious fire.
Alana gazed for a moment longer and then ushered the thought from her mind. As she climbed the stairs to the third floor she heard a bottle crash and listened to the unseen man in 300b pace in his room. Alana wondered what the man was doing up at three in the morning and then realized she was up at three am. She made her way to the fifteenth room where she found her keys and entered the calm rustle of voices.
Inside her quaint apartment, where there were little piles of manuscripts, she gazed at the pastel walls and paintings of her youth. The black flowing tail and deep dark portals to a soul that saved her life brought tears to her eyes. She turned away from the portrait and slipped into her bedroom. She let her clothes fall from her slight frame and her thick dark hair fall down her long tanned back. She meandered into her kitchen clad in her pajamas, the thought of her father's expression if he could see her now created a perfect curve in Alana's lips that hadn't been there in days. Her pale yellow kitchen brought warmth to her small apartment, although the food in it was scarce. She did not need much to live off of and she saved most of what she had. The piles of native manuscripts that she had managed to save were a constant comfort for her tormented mind.
The Tavern had become a frequent place for her to visit at night, not to "hit the bottle" as the men did, but to write in her journal and watch the people float through their obviously meaningless lives. She could not blame them for their addictions though. One face always stood out to her when she arrived and she watched him the most. She couldn't help but notice his soft blue eyes and the way he moved inside the Tavern, he seemed to float like the spirits in her room. He lived in her building but Alana did not know where. Her curiosity kept her from ever approaching him, she could not stand to ruin this image she had of him. He was an unknown character in her life as was the man down the hall. The man from room 300b only came out at night to stand on the roof. She saw him leave his room sometimes, but he scared her and she would not look him in the eye. But the man in the Tavern had this air about him that Alana could not resist.

Alana Verdioso

As she passed through the streets, her rich dark hair swayed around her lower back wrapping itself around her waist. Alana Verdioso walked to her special place in a world that was too complicated for her understand. Her life had been comprised of covered faces and galloping through the desert. This place had become her own over the past four years she had been at Thallow Flats. She unlocked the wooden gate and slipped into the garden in a daze. She sat in the swing underneathe the old oak tree and stared at the intertwining roots. Alana's dark mysterious eyes followed the path of the roots through the garden and back to the base of the ancient tree. She leaned back and stretched her legs forward allowing the sun to fall on her tanned skin. As she climbed higher and higher into the sky, she let her lips curl into a smile meant only for herself. The wind breezed past her and seemed to wrap it's airy arms around her. The only thing that was stable was nature and the voices in her apartment.

In Transit From Here to There

In the movements from childhood to adulthood we are coached by everyone around us. Our parents try to protect us from the "evils" of the world and our siblings try to show us what the world is all about. And as we are moved through calm and wretched times we consider what they tell us. We decide whether people tell us what we want to hear or if they tell us the truth of the facts. And no one ever tells us when we cross the line between childhood and adulthood, we cross it and then realize it many years later that at some particular time we crossed the line and began another chapter in our own life.