Wanderlust

The rain, and the night, make me live.

Walking by myself, the pavement is streaked with orange light – car lights and street lights – not near as harsh as day. The town is almost deserted. Almost.

I watch my feet. Storefronts – bright cafés – invite me close. I brush my eyes along the glass. I touch – cool, moist, spring – perhaps early autumn – against my winter hand. I do not enter.

The buildings are brick and cramped as one long house with many rooms. Bakeries, dress shops, pawnbrokers – everything quaint. This is where the dolls come to shop and lunch when they leave their porcelain manors. I am all too human, though. I am foreign here.

Strangers, all alike – hunched, hooded, alone – passing one another like stray toys. Rollaway balls, kites without a string. Busy shadows. Self-determined at a glance, but probably they are – I am – like the drifting leaves of newspaper, married to the wind, catching here and there, but forever gypsying on. Homeless. Nameless. Faceless. Purposeless?

Somewhere off a ways, a hand-bell chimes. My ears awaken. I have heard the sound before. The collector’s bell. I imagine he sways gently on his heels to and fro, illuminating the street-corner with a friendly, red lantern and a tin pail clinking with dimes. He is the picture of charity – of goodwill towards men. For him and his kind, it is always Christmas.

You can’t hear anything in the city. Not really. You suffer noise – pounding, oppressive – crushing your head like a vise – making you feel tired and insignificant and small. But each individual sound escapes you. Step into an open field during a thunderstorm, and you shall know sound.

A chill breeze snakes past my ankles. Tiny hairs along my neck and limbs stand to attention. My coat is long but worn, and has never done good for me. I shove my hands – cold and wet, like twin fish – deep into the pockets. I am warm-blooded again.

Now the wind is picking up. Spurts and gales. I smell rain on the horizon – not the paltry drizzle which has played spare notes on the sidewalk all day, but a powerful chord. A storm is approaching.

The pigeons squatting plump on the telephone wires rustle their plumes in agitation. They sense some electricity pricking the air. Their instincts squawk, “Take flight! Take flight!” Mine sing out, too. Find a broad canopy, nestle snug amongst the branches, tuck your head beneath your wing. Wait it out, safe. Only my wings were clipped long ago, in another millennium – before the apes climbed down from their trees, decided to walk upright and make a name for themselves. Instead I steal shelter from a slim alleyway. The inn is overpriced and clogged with tourists. I am neither rich nor a tourist.

When dawn peeks over the hills, I shall quit this place. As sure as birds fly. I cannot allow frost to gather on my forehead and numb my brain. What would I be without it? Long since dead, of course! Or bored. And aren’t they no different?

Butterflies alighting on the same flower twice risk the net, you know, and my risk is greater still. I am already starving with wanderlust. I should leave right away. The where does not matter so much as the going, as a fish cannot breathe without swimming. I shall decide when I get there.

The rain, and the night, make me live.