**Notice it's raining**
It was {now.weekdayName}. I was trying to find a familiar face in the window across the street.
It is familiar only because I watched her read to somebody every morning. Something magical and powerful is in her stories that I tried to interpret without hearing her read. I called her: {text input for: 'dogName'}.
Something magical and powerful was in her stories, which I tried to interpret without hearing her read. She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. And it wasn’t about her appearance or natural beauty that amazed me, but rather the way she moved, fragile and delicate. I don't deny that my imagination entirely constructed her personality. I invented her character traits, tone of voice, and hobbies. For example, one of the things she was passionate about was dance. Every evening after she would close the curtains, her body was turning into the unspeakable form that served as the very essence of thought. It bared her soul, beaming with life. None of this was available to anyone but her, or rather me. I knew her every cell, every mole. I lived and breathed her.
I had no hobbies of my own, except that I liked to make up stories and tell them to myself with the typewriter my father had given me for my twelfth birthday. The same year, he left our family. The typewriter was the only thing left of him. It grew into something more significant than a birthday present. My life. My conversation with myself. I had nothing else. My mom died a year after my dad left. She couldn’t stand it.
That day, I didn’t see her. I looked down at the road and noticed that it was raining. In complete silence, I could hear the raindrops that rhythmically hit the roofs of cars, houses, and puddles. The sounds were musical. For a second, my thoughts merged with the rhythm of the rain and made me feel the silence for the first time in my life. For the first time in my life, I didn’t hear any stories that would create worlds and the very essence of my existence. The next thing I remember was [[grabbing my umbrella->Grab an umbrella]].
**Grab an umbrella**
I grabbed an umbrella and headed straight to the staircase. My footsteps and thoughts were the extension of the rain. I went step by step, but the rhythm was still there, leading me to who knows where.
I opened the door and felt her warm touch in the flow of the wind, knocking me off my feet. I made another step and didn’t know what to do with a feeling of utter bliss that filled me from the bottom of my heart. I couldn’t see her, but she was inside of me. Of every breath I took and every step... ... played from the small doner place owned by an old gentleman named Sudan.
I didn’t hear those stories because this feeling was leading me somewhere in the magical realm hidden in pure nature—the wind and the rain. For the first time in my life, I was lost in myself. My feelings overwhelmed me completely. They poured me with life. For the first time, it was all about me. I tried to think about her again, about her dance. But I could only feel it. Words and thoughts didn't make any sense.
Suddenly, the intense wind [[broke my umbrella->Get wet cause the umbrella was broken by the wind]].
**Get wet cause the umbrella was broken by the wind**
I continued walking. My whole body, my hair, my clothes were getting wet. The people passing by were white noise to me. I couldn't hear them and their stories. I started thinking about the days when I was in the orphanage. I remember the first time a toy was taken away from me. A plush swamp-colored crocodile with black eyes that shone with depth. He was my family. His name was Gena. When he was taken away, I wrote my first story that changed my life. It was about Gena. He wasn't around, but I knew everything about him. He lived in my imagination. It was just the two of us in the whole world. Me and him. Him and me.
I saw her across the street on the sidewalk. I turned around, and my heart started beating harder. It interrupted the pounding of the rain and the process of my thought. Her look broke the order, the synchronicity, and the rhythm. The rhythm was gone. There was a tight feeling in my chest, as if someone's fist had squeezed my diaphragm. It wasn't clear whether it was anticipation or fear, love or pain, magic or the most ordinary.
I [[hurried->Go home and drink tea]] home.
**Go home and drink tea**
The warmth of home welcomed me with a hug. I poured a cup of tea, trying to figure out what had happened to me. What was in that look? Back home, I was in my familiar world, but she no longer existed in my head. She was real. And I was real. I felt something. Something that I lost that day when they took Gena away fifteen years ago.
I sat at my typewriter in front of the window and started clicking the letters:
[[It was {now.weekdayName}. I was trying to find a familiar face in the window across the street… ->Notice it's raining]]
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_**“I was trying to find a familiar face in the window across the street…”**_
A short story about self-reflection and tenderness that straddles the line between the grounded and the divine.
[[Start the game->Notice it's raining]]