Rain Puddles

Jonathan sat rigid on the cold, bus shelter bench; his eyes fixed on the overcast sky. The nine-thirty service rolled by, but he stayed put. Soon, his cell phone would buzz – that would be the school demanding to know where he was. They were getting tired of this. Teachers were in short supply, but they certainly weren’t indispensable.

But that didn’t matter. Any minute now, it would start raining.

*

It all started during a particularly heavy storm in August the previous year. While sheltering under the maternal arms of a willow tree, Jonathan noticed the rain puddle. A mere two feet in front of him, it was darker than most puddles and gave no reflection. Within it was the glimmer of a tiny white dress, swishing around in the dark water. Not just a dress, but a tiny woman! Her arms and legs tore through the water and her messy blonde hair swam in all directions. And she was growing… no, she was drawing closer to the surface. The puddle looked like it stretched down a thousand fathoms.

Soon she was so close that Jonathan could see the delicate creases in her forehead and the twisting of her lips. As difficult as it was to comprehend, he realised this woman was drowning. Drowning in a puddle.

Without thinking, he plunged his arms through the watery surface, only to have his fingers slam against rough concrete. He pulled back with a loud curse. Once the water had stopped quivering, the woman’s close face came back into view.

It was then, while Jonathan racked his brain for something sensible or useful to do, that the woman was suddenly wrenched backwards, her blonde hair sweeping over her face like a golden cloud and her glimmering form engulfed by the darkness. In the split second before she was gone, Jonathan noticed the fleshy, muscled tentacle that had encircled her leg.

A shrill chime rang close by and a bicycle rode over the puddle, splashing the water in his face.

He paid no attention to the buzzing in his pocket. The rain was coming down hard now, and a dirty puddle was forming on the road in front of him. Pretty soon, she would be there; that distant woman screaming and clawing through the dark water. If he ever summoned the motivation to go to work, he would likely see her in every puddle he walked past that day.

She always got so close; her pale arm stretching, so near to freedom, only to be wrenched back into the darkness. That tentacle was always there, always making him as much a prisoner to this madness as she was.

Except it was this time, in front the bus station, that he saw her fingers break through the puddle’s surface. Jonathan’s breath suddenly caught in his throat, and energy flooded him. He abandoned his seat and knelt onto the asphalt. A set of pale fingers on a single hand touched the polluted city air. They were surprisingly warm when Jonathan gripped them and pulled. Her arm followed suit, thin and glimmering with wet skin, which he pulled around his shoulder. He heaved her up and, at last, her head was above the surface. That floating mess of blonde hair was now limp and stuck to her face. Jonathan laughed as she gagged and vomited black water. He couldn’t believe this. She was out! She was free! And of course, so was he.

And then it pulled.

Frantic bubbles swirled around Jonathan. With every breath he sucked in thick, dark water. Two white feet kicked him in the ear and dashed upwards towards the small pool of sunlight overhead. He was about to follow them up when he felt the thick, muscled arm wrap around his thigh. His body was hurled backwards, and the feet and sunlight disappeared.

The spinning wheels of the nine-forty-five bus kicked the rain puddle away.

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Credited to: http://darkandmagical.blogspot.com.au