Every Sunday, I grab a snippet of writing--new, old, or somewhere in between--and post it here, for all of you to read. Today's passage is from "Gone", an in-progress short story I've been writing over the past few months. Enjoy!
~~
I wish I could say the sun shone brilliantly that day. I wish I could say that I knew something good was going to happen.
In reality, that was the last thing on my mind.
The wind whipped my hair around furiously, the rain stinging my skin as it pelted down onto my body. As much as I wanted to deny it, I could’ve sworn that I felt hail among the drops of water falling from the sky. With my car broken and my town lacking a much-needed bus service, I was forced to jog to school—a good twenty blocks away.
My umbrella proved useless as the wind simply pushed it, inverting it inside out and almost knocking it right out of my hands. I had long since given up on it, closing it and shoving it in the canvas bag slung over my shoulder. Wrestling with it was only slowing me down. I was already soaked and cranky—the last thing I needed was to be late, as well.
I was in such a rush to get to school and out of the rain that I almost didn’t see him. And I didn’t, not at first. It was faint, but it weaved through the sound of rain pounding against the pavement, floating gently up to my ears.
The cheerful, pleasant strumming of a guitar.
I slowed my brisk walk, temporarily forgetting about the droplets dripping from my wet clumps of hair, and looked around. Everyone was continuing on their way, seemingly oblivious of the young, good-looking man strumming his guitar; an acoustic version of the song Good Life by OneRepublic. My favourite song, I mentally noted.
His voice soon accompanied the instrument. It wavered in some bits, was totally off key in others. But you couldn’t deny that he was enjoying himself, his own dark wet locks flying around his head as he swayed and shook his head to the music. His bright blue eyes lit up the gloomy day as easily as the sun could have.
Before I really knew what I was doing, I was calling out to him, “Hey.”
He continued on, oblivious to my calls.
I approached him and stopped a couple feet away. “Hey!”
He stopped singing, but continued strumming, his smile never disappearing from his face. “Can I help you?”
“What are you doing?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard above the weather and the music.
“Playing guitar,” he said simply, his smile extending further across his face. “What are you doing?”
I shook my head. “I can see that. But why?”
He shrugged, his hand still smoothly and effortlessly flying across the strings of the guitar. “Why not?”
“It’s raining.”
“Exactly.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I like the rain. I like playing the guitar. I like singing. And I like this song.” He grinned, his eyes brightening. “So why not?”
He finished up his song, and I found myself whistling the final notes along with him. As he began to pack up his guitar, he pointed to the building behind me. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
I turned around to see a Tim Horton’s coffee shop sitting peacefully behind me. I turned back to face him. “I should be buying you a coffee; you’re soaked to the bone.”
He cocked an eyebrow and grinned. I was rather fond of that grin already. “So are you.”
I smiled in spite of myself. “How about I buy you a coffee, and you buy me a coffee.”
He snapped the buckle of his guitar case shut and lifted it off the ground as he stood up. “Deal.”
I was late for school for the first time that day.
~~
Until later,
- Justyne
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