The Sky Child

     Rain. Is clear. Is moist, is all perceiving, all absorbing. I am standing in the rain, rain is soaking me through, soaking every inch of my skin. In my shoes it is slushing. Between the toes. Mixing with the lint. Churning a past. I have a lot of lint. I didn't empty my socks this morning. There wasn't any time. Only time enough to throw them out and run into the rain. I wait for the thunder. It doesn't come. I wait longer. I might have even waited longer.
     Slowly I began to run. My shoes are pasted in the lint mortar. They are heavy on my feet. I try to run faster. It is not fast enough. The winds whirl around me. I want to go with them. I untie the laces. I keep untying them. There are many laces, and I had laced them all.
     I step out of the cement blocks. I step into the air. I am no longer held. I hold myself.
     The air is crisp, and full of moisture. The winds whip me around, and I am become a sky child. I laugh and the winds howl. I curse and the winds hurl. No one can touch me. No one can tame me. I am invincible in thought. Let all who would contain my life, would study my life, would attach cords and manipulate my life be lost in the wind of my laughter.

     Go away. I am searching for the thunder cat.

     My eyes are pealed, and there is no longer room to imagine the cement blocks before. Deathly lint, power so capable, so successful, so feeble. I rocket through the air, flipping and twirling, and swirling, the dark clouds are wrapped around my fingers. The rain is become my hair; blue and silver, silver lightning. I turn my head; they flow like dark, silken sheets. I turn to face the clouds. I bellow into them. They churn beneath my breath.
     He is in there somewhere.
     Knowing the message sent, I turn my cheek, and smile a hidden smile that only he could see. Then I begin to turn again. And I turn again. And again. And faster, and my hair, and the rain floats up behind my head, and twirls, and makes a sound. I wave my hands. I whirl and twirl, and nothing can defeat me. The clouds begin to twirl. The rains begin to move. They spin. Slow at first. They are hesitant. But they begin to catch on. They catch onto me. To my movement. To my momentum. To my noise.
     I am the eye of the storm. I am the hurricane's climax.
     I am the thundercat.
     BOOM
     I cry it. I stop. The clouds move suddenly away at my abruptness. And HE is there. Perhaps he was always there. Always watching. Even when I was churning in the murky lint. His skin is fur. Purple. Wet. Stuck into spikes with the sweat of the storm. His jaws. His tusks. His great yellow eyes. The darker than night horns. His great wings. Like dark sheets. The massive paws. Thick, merciless paws. He turns his head to look at the sky child. With his yellow eyes, he looks at me.
     I grab his ear.
     We dance.




     Outside the thunder booms. I cannot lift my head to see the window. I cannot leave the room, to feel the rain. I cannot loose the cords that feed the drugs.

     I cannot. I cannot. I cannot.

     I look over to the calendar, hanging on the stale, white wall. It says it is April. April 1st.
     Drool begins to seep out of the corner of my mouth. My bald head slides over.
     A strange, hot tear begins to form.
April is my last month.