Lost

The rain doesn't bother me. It used to, but a lot of things used to bother me that don't anymore. The rain urges me to change my plans, but never for the worse. So I am inside. So I will read. And I will make butter and clean the apartment. So I will do these things instead of going outside. Going to the library. Or going for a walk with the dogs. I will do things inside and let the rain do what it's supposed to do outside.

But then I think: rain is only water and water is only water.

So I step outside with the umbrella and go for a walk. I walk to the library. And the rain keeps coming and now there is thunder. The man approaches me, soaked, with Coca-Cola in his hand. He has no umbrella, just plaid shirt and jeans. Just boots and a look on his face that tells me he's not there anymore. He says, "Where's the grocery store that used to be a Kentucky Fried Chicken?"

I don't know and I tell him so. I tell him that there's a grocery store down the street, but that it's big, that if it were a Kentucky Fried Chicken, it would have been the biggest one I'd ever seen, had I seen it before it became a grocery store.

"I'm lost," he says. "I went out, but my friends are at the grocery store. I don't know how to find my way back."

I don't know what to tell him, so I don't tell him anything. I think, Maybe I should give him my umbrella.

But, I dont think he knows that it's even raining. He turns away. He shuffles in his boots. I notice that they are untied. For some reason, I know that I will carry this image with me for a very long time. Someone will ask, What does it mean to be lost? And I will know.

The rain comes down even harder. There is lightning. A wind that topples my umbrella. I am wet.

But the rain does not bother me anymore.