Eveleen

Rainfall

Some days, it feels like the rain never stops.

The world is unfocused, painted in monochrome shades of grey. Those faces that once seemed familiar look so, so tiny. Do they smile? Do they frown? It is unclear, watercolour dissipating into nothingness. Everything is far away, stripped away from her grasp. She wanders with no home, an infinite expanse without opportunity.

All she can do is weep. A cascade of tears, the only expression that she can convey. Her pain drenches the earth, turning dirt to mud, filling the rivers that flow. The crackling of the sky was her anger, as it arced with a lance of white. It was all she could do, for her suffering was her agency, carving the forces of nature into a portrait, something that makes sense.

What is sense? She doesn’t know anymore. The flap of birds in the sky blew through her, a fleeting embrace that vanished just as fast. This was love, where she was. A caress, or what was left of it. Provided carelessly, and gone with the wind, but all that she could remember, in those long, long years. The only delicacy to grace her tongue was less than ash, tasteless liquid, rolling through her body. Only the wind would keep her company, with its not-whispers and gossips that it brought. She might have answered back, if she could. But that would be too kind.

Then, she would wake. She would feel the soft moss under her claws, moist and ticklish. She would hear the distinct sound of laughter and chatter, optimistic discussion of another day. The sun did not sear her back, as she could shelter beneath the calming shade. In the morning, she would lift to her lips a bowl of soup, and its thick, salty flavour would fill her mouth. She would drink deep, of the delicious aroma, spiced, distinct, and alive. Her name was Eveleen, and she was alive.

Sometimes, she did not understand. Days would blend together, indistinct from what felt like eternity. Emotion was not exclusively conveyed through action, but instead patterns of interaction characterised by an intricate web of communication. Eveleen knew how some of her compatriots looked at her, a stranger that seemed to have no face. She would have lied, if she said that it didn’t hurt. She wanted to learn, but could a broken vase still hold water? How do you relate, when your very sense of self was robbed from you?

Doubt creeps like a dark cloud over life. She might return, banished again to the endless sky. Like a fleeting scrap, the moment of calm would be snatched from her grasp. Her name, her love, her friends, she would lose them all again, banished to solitude, to gently weep onto an earth she could not touch. Was she a dragon dreaming to be a cloud, or a cloud dreaming to be a dragon?

She didn’t know. What she did know, was the feeling of the moment. That singular moment, where everything seems real. Colours in bloom, voices of life, captured in that instant. Emotion rushes forth, tinting the world in its own unique perspective. Those moments echo in the soul, and root themselves in the ground. Eveleen would capture those snippets in time, onto canvas and sculpture. Her claws moved slowly and deliberately, as she relished every second of that experience. In capturing the essence of reality, she would become real. She would return to herself what she had lost.

When the storm would come again, to wash away all that she had gained, her monuments would remain. Stalwart and untarnished, they dam the torrent, a certainty in a maelstrom of chaos. Even as her life was stripped away, and sense was removed from her body, they would hold her, as a reminder that it will cease. A moment of reality, anchored in the flood of centuries of pain.

Her new life was not easy, but it was hers. And all that she had endured, all that she had progressed, stands as testament to her efforts. They stand, as a sign that one day, the rain will finally stop.