Wet Daydreams

...let the red rain splash you/ let the rain fall on your skin....

Three blue rigs stand vigilant in dinosaurian dignity across froth-dotted murky waters of the harbour. I don't know what they do. I imagine they move when I am not looking.

Rain slashes down in diagonal sheets. My black trenchcoat flaps madly. The umbrella threatens to turn itself inside out, but does not. Spray from faux cobblestone wets my toes. I am wearing foolish footwear, sandals, on this storm-heavy day, for though I don't care for wet feet particularly, I'm truly miserable in sodden shoes. My toenails are the color I wish for the sky.

"I don't want to say it's windy out, but somebody just dropped a house on my sister."

Three out of the four people I say this to stare at me, baffled, missing what I thought was a broad cultural refernce. I give up trying to amuse the General Public.

Instead, I smile brightly at each stranger bold enough to meet my gaze, fewer than I'd hoped. The woman at the pastry stand neglects to charge me for the cookie I request with my coffee. A family lunching in the window of the Science Center waves to me as though I were an attraction.

Grinning, I wave back. Perhaps I am.

(Red Rain; Peter Gabriel)