The Raving Poets - Michael Hogan

The Triffids

HE WAS standing in the pouring rain when he realised he had nowhere to go. He looked down the street where taillights reflected in the puddles. He looked up the street and saw headlights cleaving bright depth in the road, deep enough to plunge into and disappear, he thought. Then the headlights went left and the car hemorrhaged bright red into the wet road behind it, too bright for blood, he thought, and started to fish for the keys in his pockets. She's just stolen property now, he said to himself, then shrugged his eyebrows in a statement of unwilling acceptance.

The rain poured, ran off the shop awnings and splashed into the flooded gutters. His hair was plastered to his head, shirt soaked, trousers patchy with dry spots, boots darker than they should have been, and the water ran over his eyes and down his face.

With keys in hand, he walked in the direction his car was parked, hard up against the kerb. The rust spots were rough oases in the smooth wet panels. The key slotted neatly and turned loosely. The seat soaked the water off his back and legs. He stared at the rain pelting the windscreen and shivered a little. Nowhere left to go, he thought again.

He turned the engine and hit the wipers, then the headlights. He could see the beam of old yellow light streaming through the streaking rain. It's ten o'clock and I can't see the sun, he realised. I need some sun, he decided. I wonder where I'll find the sun, he wondered, and put it in gear.

ON THE open road, the wide open road, he relished the friendly familiarity of the old yellow light tracing the path ahead. He could see the rain and felt the natural beat of the wipers. He heard the heater and the whir of the road beneath, the sensations of the freedom he had forgotten, like the sun. He simply drove north, where he thought he would find the sun. He had no idea how long it would take to find it. He had seen it recently, but somehow not noticed when it had disappeared, like a friend who somehow lacks relevance anymore.

He drove with trees close to the road, trees that leaned overhead until they nodded against each other. Fat water fell from the slicked leaves and smacked against the windscreen. The road was long like a river, black and glossy.

The trees gave way to scrub, and eventually, white dunes. He noticed the salt in the air, could smell the ocean and he scanned the sky for the sun, but it couldn't be found behind the black of the clouds. And the rain fell, but his fuel gauge never moved, not that he noticed. He was navigating the waters that had drenched his world so thoroughly.

He wondered about her now, now that he was where she had never been, this place so far north. He had not once looked in his rearview mirror, nor looked left or right, he hadn't even had a flicker of a thought of her until now, in this place where he knew she had never been. It was safe now. She had no connection here, none but him, the only piece of her life that had ever wandered this far, seeking the sun. Had she ever seen the sun? Had she ever really SEEN it?

He wound down the cranky old window and breathed the ocean. He heard the waves and thought he might find the sun where the water was at its deepest.

His tired old headlights cast to the left and he followed them over the white limestone track, bumpy, rough and jagged, between salt bushes and sand dunes, until the track ended.

He turned off the headlights, then the wipers, then the engine. He was alone with the sound of the easing rain tapping the roof, knocking to see if anyone was home, trying to coax him out. He had no idea of the time. The sun was nowhere, he had not found it.

HE WOKE with his arm around her. Then he realised it wasn't her at all, but the freedom she had taken from him. He rubbed his eyes, and noticed the rain had stopped. Opening his eyes, he found there was light. Sunlight glistened off the bonnet of the car and glared through the windscreen. He opened the door and stepped into the warmth. He closed his eyes and tilted his chin at the setting sun then walked towards it, climbing over the dunes that muffled the sound of pounding waves. It was louder when he crested the dune, and he ambled to the edge of the water. The sun was smudging the ocean glistened-gold. He thought it made a pathway over the water straight to its heart, and it was all he wanted. He wanted to be in the heart of the warmth. He pulled off his shoes, his socks, his shirt and pants, and waded into the water.

Diving into the first curling wave, he thought, you always have to go through the water to get to the sun. Why is that? and he surfaced behind the wave. It thumped behind him as looked up and saw his castles in the clouds, then he found a rhythm in his stroke and he headed west. She wasn't here now, she wasn't here to hurt anymore, and there were no more old yellow headlights, just this burnished gold before him, straight to the heart. Straight to the heart.