Waking Dreams

I watch the tree through the kitchen window. Part of it—the window, I mean—is obscured by lacy yellow curtains my wife bought; ugly as sin but they’re one of the few things she ever asked for so I’ll oblige. The tree alternately stands still and bends its branches in the wind.

The kitchen itself is pretty dark—there never seem to be a lot of lights on in my house. Maybe there aren’t as many as I think, or maybe I’m just too lazy to turn them on. It really doesn’t matter one way or the other.

What you’ve got to remember, I suppose, is that I’m not one of those loyal salary-man types who works himself half to death every day and then drinks the other half every night. I was in school to become one of those. The college I went to wasn’t nearly prestigious enough to get me into a halfway-decent job, so that’s what I was looking at.

And maybe that’s why I decided to do this, instead. Just stay home and see to the house while my wife does the working.

I tear my attention away from the tree—I literally have to, although it’s not a very remarkable tree—and open a cupboard. I don’t really know what I want out of it, I just want something; idle hands are the devil’s workshop, after all.

I end up with a large pot, a colander, and a bag of soba noodles. It’s something around eleven-fifteen in the morning, which is always when I got the first ‘lunch pangs’, anyway. So I fill the pot and set it to boiling on the stove. Then I do my little ritual.

First, a dash of soy sauce into the boiling water. It’d probably be considerably more efficient to put the soy sauce on the noodles when they’re finished, but that’s just part of the routine. Then add the noodles; carefully so as not to scald myself with flying drops of water. And then, watch the noodles cook, reaching in with the chopsticks sometimes to stir them a little.

Watching noodles cook is exciting for me. Almost arousing, you might say. Not that I get off on the phallic shape of noodles or anything, it’s just one of those things that makes me a distinct person.

I have my quirks, just like you or the guy next door to you (or to me, for that matter). I’m not one of those guys whose quirks include an earlobe fetish or the ability to fit three billiard balls in his mouth, but I’ve got them all the same.

My other quirk is my wife. She’s a sort of petite late-twenties girl, and about the only exception to The Rule.

See, back in high school I was a real ladies’ man. I don’t know what it was exactly, because although I’m not unusually ugly or overweight or anything, I’m not exactly the handsomest guy around, either. But girls seemed attracted to me, and hell, I was attracted right back.

I had a little circle of friends back then. We were kind of an informal group of guys who’d eat lunch together and maybe hang out somewhere when school let out. We were all fairly popular, particularly with females. I don’t know if it was the punk image, or if we just asked more girls out on dates so it looked like we were popular, but that was the case.

Together we formulated this thing called The Rule. I don’t know quite why we called it that—it wasn’t like we were a gang or a cult with an inviolable code of honor. To this day I have a tendency to believe that we only called it The Rule so we could say things like "an exception to The Rule" and think we were funny. Or maybe it pertained more to a Rule of human psychology and less of our group. Who knows.

But at any rate, The Rule was something like this: you’d take a girl on a date or two, maybe actually get to know her a bit, but in the back of your mind you were always thinking about making out with her. That was the final goal. Yes, we were locked firmly in the realm of the senses, but it didn’t really bother any of us. I don’t know if high schoolers today are still like that. But the truth is, it’s probably been fifteen years since I was in high school, and even longer since I cared to think about it.

The other part of The Rule was that we’d share all our war stories with our comrades the day after. Of course, being who and what we were, we all had a tendency to greatly overstate our own virility. We had a couple of guys who would occasionally brag about getting some girl in the sack, although in all cases I highly doubt that these people had ever even seen a naked female, much less slept with one.

So back to my wife. I saw a lot of girls in my time. I always fancied myself an intellectual, but usually there was more necking than talking on the dates I went on. My wife was the opposite. For some reason, I didn’t have that urge to make out with her.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t attracted to her—not by a long shot. She wasn’t one of those supermodel types, but she possessed a quiet beauty that made people sit up and take notice. It was just that I didn’t feel the urge, the need to kiss her, at least not repeatedly.

To this day I’ve felt that way. No burning desire for physical entanglement, but she really is very pretty. To say nothing of intelligent.

But the noodles have finished cooking, and I carefully pour them into the colander in the sink, trying not to let the scalding water touch me as it flows. Then I run the sink, cold water, rinsing the noodles, sliding them around with the cooking chopsticks from time to time to make sure all the noodles get washed.

And then, into a bowl with them, and trade the cooking chopsticks for a normal pair. Most people like sauce on their noodles, but I usually prefer to eat them without condiments.

Come to think of it, it’s very quiet here. I can’t even hear birds chirping outside. It’s not really horror-movie silent, though; just kind of…soundless. The only real light in the house is still the shaft of sunlight that enters through the window just above the sink, but it doesn’t bother me any.

I sit down at the table and start slurping noodles into my mouth, holding the bowl up near me to make it easier. The noodles are good per normal, but something about them is a little off. It isn’t like I cooked them wrong or there was a defect in the manufacturing or anything, there’s just something funny about the taste.

Or not the taste, even, but the feeling. Probably sounds weird, like I think I’m some kind of noodle-telepath. I’m not. But I’m sure you’ve had that sensation, too, in some capacity. When something is just kind of…wrong, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

That’s when the telephone rings. It’s my wife.

"I’ll be stopping by the store after work," she says. "Is there anything you need?"

It seems like an odd request. She never does the shopping mid-week, and she never calls me in the middle of the day to ask if I need anything if she does.

Nonetheless, I consider. Was there anything I needed? Not really, I decide.

"Not really," I say. "Except…maybe some cheese."

"Alright," she replies. "I was going to pick up some of that, anyway."

I wonder briefly if she really means that, or if she’s just saying it to make me feel like I’m not imposing on her. Doesn’t really matter either way, I figure. She’s going to the store and that’s that.

"Thanks."

It feels hollow, like there’s something more to be said. I want to ask if something’s wrong, but knowing my wife she would never tell me if I asked her so directly. She’d just dodge the question and look for a reason to hang up.

That’s the next sound I hear, too: the shushing and clicking of the line as the receiver on the other end is set down.

It takes me a moment to do anything, because I don’t really want to move from that spot. There’s a vague sense of foreboding, like if I move then something bad will happen. Not quite the out-of-place feeling I got from the noodles, but in the same vein.

But finally I do move, back to the table. I briefly consider finishing off the noodles, but decide I don’t want them anymore. I pick up the bowl and empty it into the trash, and wash out the bowl itself. It’s kind of a shame to see good noodles go to waste, but I can’t really help it. At least I got to watch them cook.

* * * *

It’s early afternoon, say twelve-something, when clouds take over the sky. It kind of surprises me, since there was no indication in any weather reports that there’d be clouds. But I guess Mother Nature was never one for obeying human whims, and not only are there clouds but rain—and hard.

The rain outside makes the house even darker than it was. Before this, the only light was more or less coming from the sun through the windows, and now even that’s been cut off.

So I pull on a long coat and go outside. I don’t really know why; I’ve just got this urge to go for a walk in the rain. I don’t even want an umbrella or anything—the point isn’t the walking, it’s the rain.

Outside, I can hear the spatter of the drops on the sidewalk and see it beating down the grass and whatever other plants tried to stand up to its assault. And moreover I can feel it on myself, soaking quickly through my coat and then my shirt, but it really doesn’t matter to me.

I just start walking, down the block, around a corner, toward the little town that lies somewhere up ahead. The city hereabouts, if you can call it that, isn’t very large. Not so small that everyone knows everyone else, though; you still run into plenty of strangers on any given trip into town.

Right now there’s no one there. Everyone else has the sense to stay inside out of the rain. But then, I guess no one else has that same urge, to be out in the rain. Kind of makes me special, if you think about it. Lone man, out in the rain. Maybe people see me and wonder what I’m doing, but it doesn’t really matter to me. I never was one to care what People thought, and besides, for all they know I’m just headed down to the subway station to take a train to Ueno, where maybe it isn’t raining, and enjoy the park.

The walk itself is fairly aimless. My feet seem to have some preset course in mind, and I let them follow it. Like I said, it’s not the walking that concerns me so much as the experience of walking. For me, rain was always very conducive to thought. The general consensus is that rain is a bad, bad thing. Even the weathermen, whom I would expect to be the most meterologically open-minded people among us, seem to shun it. But I rather prefer it to sunshine, myself. But hey. That’s just another one of my quirks.

* * * *

When I get home it’s still raining, and the house is still dark, but my feet have completed their desired circuit and so there’s no need for more walking. I check the answering machine but there are no messages, from my wife or otherwise.

I still do want cheese. It wasn’t just something I said. I wanted it then, and I want it now. Not some fancy Camembert or Brie or anything like that; those are wine cheeses. I just want the standard cheese, and that’s all.

But, still. The idea of having cheese in the middle of the afternoon bothers me for some reason. What bothers me more, maybe, is that we don’t have any cheese around here to have in the middle of the afternoon. What bothers me even more that that, though, maybe, is that it bothers me at all. I’m not usually a ‘cheese person’, so to speak.

I glance at the clock. Nearing two, and the rain is still falling as hard as ever with no signs of letting up. Well, that doesn’t bother me, even if cheese does.

I walk over to the refrigerator and pull open the door, a slight fup sounding as it unseals itself. I take a look at the contents: milk, orange juice, and a few desultory soda cans on the top shelf. The second shelf is dominated by different varieties of beer. It may seem surprising, but my wife is probably a bigger drinker than I am. Not that I don’t enjoy a good cold one now and then, but she’s the kind of person who has ‘discriminating tastes’ and can tell one type of beer from the next without having to look at the can. And of course, she has her personal tastes. Well, that’s one of her quirks, I guess.

The bottom shelf has the other items we need, meats and a few fruits and vegetables, all stacked haphazardly on top of each other because there’s no room on the other shelves but there’s really no room on that shelf, either, and so everything’s all crammed together on that bottom shelf.

In a flash I realize how empty the house is, just me and the rain and no wife and it seems as though I am the last man living in all the earth. I feel a sudden compulsion to shove my hand into the refrigerator and grab a beer, and then pop it open and drink it down in one gulp. But something in me resists. It only wants the rain and the darkness.

Noodles, I realize. My God, how I want noodles. But when I check the cupboard there are none left, and I never did ask my wife to buy any at the store. The time has quietly slipped past two o’clock and still the rain cascades down, clouds obscuring all but the dimmest light. But still it bothers me only distantly, as though no matter how hard the rain or how dark the skies I can never be hurt by any of them, not one.

The refrigerator’s been hanging open for nearly five minutes as I stand there, and I finally close it, not wanting the food to go bad or thaw. And now, without the light from the bulb in the top of the refrigerator, there’s only the rain, and the clouds and the rain combine to cast the entire house in a blue-black shade reminiscent of nothing so much as Memory’s Shadow.

See, remember what I said about my wife being the exception to The Rule? Well, thinking about it, I think I know why. The day we had our first real date, it was at my apartment. Supposed to be a nice dinner together, and then…well, The Rule.

But it was raining that night. Raining just like now, same color, same sound. I hadn’t drawn the shades—don’t want to give away your intentions, right?—and I could see the rain outside, painting the window with countless tiny droplets. The lights were turned down low, and we just had a couple of candles flickering on my undersized table. Like I said, my wife is pretty, and I wanted to at least make a good impression on her before making out.

But, see…the rain. The rain entranced me so much that I let go of all thought of getting physical and just talked to her, half-thinking about the rain the whole time. I like to think it was because I actually have a shred of civility in me, but it really was the rain. To this day, I wonder if she knows. Probably. She’s a pretty savvy girl that way.

I don’t really know what to do with myself in the present tense. The rain just isn’t going to stop—I wonder if our little town has ever had this much rain all at once. Probably not. I’ll bet the streets are going to be flooded before the storm is past.

But it doesn’t really matter to me, in my house. I’m on a lot of land here, and I don’t have a basement to worry about. I think about that train I might have been taking to Ueno, if someone saw me outside in the rain and thought, maybe he’s taking a train to Ueno. I wonder, privately, if it’s raining in Ueno. I always thought Ueno Park would be beautiful in the rain. But it’s hard enough to get there as it is; I can’t be just sitting around waiting to take a train when it starts raining in Ueno Park.

Or on second thought, I could. I’m unemployed and I don’t have any regular business to do. So what’s stopping me? I don’t really know. Maybe I just don’t want to be planning my life that way. Like, if you’re constantly waiting for a future event that may or may not occur, then you’ve totally missed the point of being alive.

I think a lot of people do that. Get so absorbed in staying alive that they forget what to do while they are. So I’m not waiting for any train to Ueno in the rainy days, but I think—I can’t be waiting for nothing to be happening, either. That’s as much an event as rain in Ueno Park.

And meanwhile, I’ve got no noodles.

* * * *

It’s almost eleven o’clock when my wife gets home from work. In the interval I’d done sweet nothings, sitting and looking and watching and thinking and listening to the rain, which even now pounds down from the sky.

"Sorry I’m late," she says tonelessly. She looks like she could collapse at any moment, and some part of me mentally prepares to leap forward and catch her if she does.

What do you know, she went to the store. She went to the damn store, just like she said she would.

"What’s wrong?" I ask quietly. Not fearfully, just wondering.

She doesn’t even try to pretend something isn’t. She knows I know about the ‘store thing’. We’re too familiar not to know things like that.

She sits down at the table. More than sits, kind of falls heavily, but with control.

"This morning I was going to kill myself. But I went to the store instead."

Somehow it doesn’t sound absurd, coming from her.

I look at her. Even in the nearly nonexistent light—or perhaps because of it—she is strikingly beautiful. I guess I’m not one of those ‘bachelor nostalgic’ types to sit around lamenting the day I got married.

"I got cheese."

She stands and pulls a small block of the stuff out of her bag, which seems relatively empty. Just as well, because our refrigerator doesn’t have much more room in it, anyway.

"Thanks."

I suppose maybe I don’t sound like it on the surface, but I really do mean it.

She sets the cheese on the table in front of me, for me specifically. Then she sits back down. More control this time, less heaviness. And still the rain falls.

I stand up myself this time, and take the short steps to the refrigerator. I open it up and grab a beer—it doesn’t matter what brand, to me. I don’t ask if she wants one because—like the store thing—I know. I can tell just by looking at her, she isn’t in the mood for beer.

So I sit back down in front of my cheese, a similarly generic brand but it serves its cheesy purpose all the same. In fact, I like it better that way. I just have beer with my cheese. I’m not even sure we have wine, but it doesn’t matter because this isn’t a wine cheese. Not some exotic Camembert. Not imported Brie.

I pop the tab on my beer, and the hissing sound as it opens is somehow pleasurable. Not noodle-pleasurable, not like that. Kind of like…anticipation. It’s just associations, after all. I associate that sound with a cold beer. I associate the rain with a dark night long ago, when I had no thought of making out.

My wife doesn’t even look up at the sound of the beer. She looks like she’s sleeping, but she’s not. Just listening. To the rain, probably, but I don’t know.

I don’t ask about her desires. Not why she’d want to die, or why she’d decided to go to the store instead. I know that, too, somewhere deep inside. I think she’s crying. I want to reach over and touch her, or caress her, or something that might help, but it wouldn’t. She always was very independent. Hated for people to try and help her with things like this.

So instead I just find a butter knife and turn it into a cheese knife, slicing an irregularly-shaped piece of cheese from my block, the special block of cheese she bought at the store just for me. The table’s dark, and the cheese is dark, all because of the clouds and the rain and I know in the same way I know my wife’s deepest thoughts that they’re not going to go away any time soon.

I listen to the rain and my wife’s silent tears and I’m not eating the cheese, just kind of holding it, and the rain just keeps raining and raining away. What the hell, I figure. Let it come down.