Summer Rain

The end of spring. As a welcome or farewell, the district of Chinatown was met with a rare evening of clear skies and clean air. Both light and shadows passed, but neither lingered. 

With renewed clarity came curiosity. Suspended above the earth stood mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, friends of all or none. Who were they? 

An elderly woman, whose rallying saw the death of a derelict steel plant. A boy, whose flowers drooped sadly by his side. They wondered: Who were we? What had become of us?

Some miles to the west, passions swarmed through the city’s network of aerial transportation. Greed, which illuminated billboards and floating advertisements. Ambition, which leapt from skybridges to different points of elevation. Hope, as fragile as it was, lingered on train seats and latched onto bike tubes. From the ground, riders soared like identical comets. 

Back to the east, a question arose within a realm of unconsciousness. 

Perhaps, cried a voice, today would bring an eclipse. 

No, whispered another, it was a night of renewal. 

The end of spring was met with the first shower of summer rain. A boy of eighteen arrived. 

He came with his feet soiled by wet dirt and one hand atop a music case. The other tried to grasp the setting sun. As sleep fell upon skyrises and machines dozed off, the world was divided into two. A boy of eighteen arrived and he stood right where the halves converged.