The Rain Daniel Keene

The Rain

Daniel Keene

But how could you possibly remember me?
How could the sea possibly remember the sea-shell
That once it surged through

Par Lagerkvist
From Evening Land

Hanna, an old woman

People used to give me all kinds of things all kinds of people all kinds of things loaves of bread still warm from the oven sweet biscuits dusted with icing sugar apple cores and boxes of dead matches yellow flowers and brown paper bundles tied with string blankets and cups and kettles and children’s shoes and broken dishes and jars and jars of ashes and the rain someone gave me the rain once

I didn’t know the people they gave things to me when they were getting on the train they were in a hurry to get on the train there were others telling them to get on the train and that they had to hurry they had to hurry onto the train the train was so crowded so so crowded I didn’t know how everyone would fit they all fitted through somehow they all fitted on the train and I’ll never know how they did they just did and then the doors of the train were shat and the train left and I was left with all these things they’d given me it happened over and over again because there was more than one train there were many trains and it was always the same train going back and forth back and forth I don't know where it was going only that the people never came back

It was a long time ago but I remember it very clearly

It was just there you see just standing there and they saw me and they gave me these things they were carrying there was nothing allowed on the train nothing at all they were told they could not take nothing with them

So there was some kind of confusion you see because they’d brought these things with them thinking they could take them on the train but nothing was allowed

I used to take all the things they’d given me all these things ordinary and strange and often beautiful and sometimes broken things and I’d put them in my house and gradually all of the rooms of my house were filled filled with all these things and there was hardly any room for me and very soon there was no room at all for me and I had to sleep out in the yard

I don't know how long that went on it went on and on and I became quite used to sleeping in the yard I quite liked it I was like a babe in the wood like Adam and Eve with no Adam there was never an Adam not for me not ever and I grew quite used to it

I’d gone in the house only to work because there was work to do there was sorting out to do because at first everything was such a jumble and I had to sort things out because I always believed that some day I didn't know when but some day all these people who had given me things would come back they’d come home and they’d want all their things back and I thought I’d better have it all sorted out so that they could claim their things without having to clear out the whole house to find one pair of silver rimmed spectacles or a certain little bundle of clean linen or some very particular pair of child’s lace-up shoes so there was a lot of sorting out to do

But they never came home of course they never came home

I have a whole room of one thing and another but I had more things than rooms of course so I had to divide some of the rooms some of the rooms had two or three or even four things in them one room had five one room had spectacles and watches and combs and hat pins and photographs

I wondered then and I still wonder even now I’m old and it was all so long ago but I still wonder why they gave me all these things I was simply there you see simply standing there when the train pulled in

Growing in it just after a while these paths the people wore in the earth all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people walking across the field just the worn paths they left like dried out rivers all leading to the train and then nothing of course nothing after that nothing on the other side of the tracks nothing

I don’t know why I was standing there why I was always standing there I was out walking perhaps I can’t remember I was just wandering on my own wandering somewhere I was young I was solitary I liked to go on long walks I’d look at things I’d look at nature I loved nature animals I loved animals I loved birds their colour their energy I was solitary you see very alone I was very alone I was unhappy perhaps I cant remember I was young and perhaps I was unhappy that’s all it was I was young and alone and went on long walks and stood in empty fields but I was always standing there when the train pulled in and these long lines of people were put onto the train and they filled passed me and they gave me things they piled them around me when I couldn’t hold them any longer they piled them around me as if I were just there for that as if I was meant for that

I’m sorry I’m sorry but I was telling you a story and I’ve lost all the threads of my story my story was about all these things that were given to me all these things that belonged to people I didn’t know who never came back for them

It was never a burden to me you see never ever a burden

Of course there came a time when people stopped giving me things because there were no more people and no more trains ant it all stopped quite suddenly there was nothing any more only the field the field was there and the paths worn in the earth and the tracks growing rusty so quickly and the awful somehow the awful and complete stillness of the empty field that was so dreadful

But I kept everything just as it was and tried to keep things tidy I was forever dusting and cleaning and trying to preserve everything I’d been given but some things just crumbled away they just rot away to nothing you can only watch them falling away to nothing and disappearing

As we do as we all must no matter how no matter how how how real we have been no matter how real we feel we have been how present how alive we have all been alive we are all alive all of us

We are I know we are I believe that

For a time for a time we were alive I cling to that I am sustained by it we are alive for time a brief time a long time there seems no difference not to me not now perhaps once perhaps once there was a difference I cant remember what it was what the difference was

I was telling a story I must not forget that I forgot you see in the midst of all this remembering I forgot

The photographs and the clothes and the little brown bundles tied with string that I never opened they all faded away over the years there was nothing I could do I felt like I was caring for all these dying things and I couldn't help them there was no help for them over the years and that was just the way I lived with all this sorrow around me and inside me and sometimes I couldn't stand it I just couldn't and id go for long walks just as I did when I was young but not as far of course not nearly as far and never through the field I never went into the field again I stopped going there I stopped looking at it I never ever walked past it again I went another way another way entirely because I just couldn't stand it you see u couldn't bear to see it again which was shameful of me I suppose I often thought it was shameful of me somehow but I just couldn't I couldn't

The house grew emptier and emptier as all these things crumbled and fell apart and began moving them around and rearranging things which often made matters worse and so many things so so many things just fell apart in my hands when I picked them up just fell apart completely and there was nothing left of them

Only dust lasts forever

After a long while there was a whole room empty and I could move back into the house but I didn't move back I stayed outside in the yard I’d grown so used to it you see and the house didn’t seem to be mine any longer it belonged to all the dying things inside it belonged to those people who gave me all those things those people I never knew and knew I would never see again

I’d grown old by then so terribly old

I often see their faces these people who gave me things I don't see all of them of course there wee to many of them but a few a few are still with me as the saying goes

I haven’t long now none of us have some of us have less some of us are old some of use are too old all I can do is remember it’s what happens to me know

I remember

A woman and a man both cark as Gypsies her with a blue scarf around her neck and him wearing a yellow tie that I’m sure was silk they were young they were about twenty and arm in arm they gave me a small tin of coins the coins were strange and old and dark with age they were burnished with age and the wear of so so many hands I always wondered how many hands had held them how many things these coins had bought what things they bought and why has they been kept so long in this small round tin I think it had been a sweet tin but the writing on the lid was rubbed away from so much handling and by so many years and years and years holding these few coins that must have meant something to the two young people who gave it to me but I cant imagine what it was I just cant

I don't want to

A young man as thin as straw and wearing a cap that hid his face his green eyes his full lips his young beard he gave me his white handkerchief

A woman with a black veil a mourning veil I couldn't see her face only that her lips were so very red she gave me a tortoise shell broach in the shape of a fish a long miraculous fish ambers and gold and brown as autumn she looked back at me as she walked away the heel of her shoe was broken she limped

A boy a little boy

A man with a blue glass eye he was thick and heavy and tired and stopped over bent over and curved like a question mark he gave me a large cardboard suitcase the suitcase was filled with yellowed newspapers bound with twine

A boy a little boy with a shock of black hair

A young girl alone I asked her why she was alone she was so young she gave me a basket of feathers she didn't answer me crows feathers and sparrows and doves and the tiny summer green feathers of a finch why are you alone? And she didn't answer she gave me the tail feathers of a swallow the white feathers of a swan and grey doves and doves and doves

Black hair a shock of coal black hair a little boy he gave me

A woman a man a girl an old man a tiny woman a tall man a musician gave me a violin case the case was empty an old woman a man with two overcoats a man with three silver spoon a woman with a sad mouth a young man with a crippled hand men and women and children they gave me things

I kept them and they filled my house

A little boy with a shock of coal black hair gave me a bottle a small bottle an old brown medicine bottle with a torn label and a wad of paper for a stopper

It’s the rain he said the rain from the roof of my house where is your house? I asked him he pointed he pointed and said back there I looked I looked and all I could see was a long line of people hundreds and hundreds of people walking across the empty field his house was back there back there somewhere where thy had all come from

I caught the rain in a dish he said and I put it in this bottle

The rain belongs to God I’ve kept it for him

He said

Will you keep it for me?

Yes I said I’ll keep it for you

Until I come back he said

Among all the things that were lost among all the things that fell away to nothing over all the long long years

The rain

You’ll come back I said

Yes

He said

I’ll come back

For God’s rain