My Rain Memory

I awoke at midday afternoon to the sound of the piercing rain against the roof. It was that usual waking time, on days when I have all day to do the things I wanted and all the time to do it but not doing it anyway, except that it was raining very hard. Normally I would just shut my eyes back and spend the whole day sleeping. But not this time. I looked out the window momentarily and stared into the open space, then curled back to bed. I shifted towards the ceiling, paused, and before I knew it, found myself gazing intently at it, wallowing in deep thoughts. The rain always does that to me. It leaves me feeling nostalgic. When it rains bits of images play inside my mind non-stop. My fondest memory would have to be that one evening it rained really hard after school. I was in grade school and we could not get a hold of any ride home because one, the jeepneys were packed; and two, we had to compete with people much, much older than us. After testing our luck waiting for an hour we decided to beat it. We walked the distance back home through the rain. We could have got shelter from the rain had we wanted; instead, me, my brother and two friends decided to join the rest of the kids who were walking and playing in the rain. It was not the first time it was happening, but it was the first time I was doing it. Together with my older brother, we joined the other children in jumping over puddles, sometimes unsuccessfully, getting our shoes and school uniforms wet. I knew that playing in the rain in school uniform would get me into trouble with our mother, but I did not care. We eventually got home, wet and cold to the marrow but our mother was more worried about us getting fever than the 'crime' we had just committed. We were hurried into the bathroom given warm water for bathing, which was a treat then and afterwards sat watching television all night with our cups of hot chocolate and recollections of the beautiful day. My mother used to stop me from playing with