Flash fiction on a Friday night

So maybe you walk across a bridge and maybe as you walk you see the leaves floating along the water and there are trees on the other side. And maybe you linger on the bridge, throw small stones off the edge, watch them skid across the water. And perhaps it starts to rain and your coat begins to get wet and the leaves in the trees, they move ever so slightly and you stamp your boots to keep your legs warm and then perhaps you slip your hands into your coat and drop your neck into the collar of your coat and you remember another moment, perhaps a moment on the street when the rains also came down like this ever so slightly and you wanted to say something, there were words collecting at the back of your throat and you were thinking, if I can just get them out I will say them. And then the rain begins to come down harder and you can hear it in the trees and you think, I wonder what should I eat when I go home, what is in the fridge, is there milk? Perhaps you can make a white sauce with some spaghetti and if you stop by the little corner shop on the street near you you can get those big brown mushrooms and braise them in butter and you if you get some spring onions you can chop them up too. And now the rain is coming down harder and you are still standing on the bridge and the edges have become more blurred and you can’t see any outlines and everything is as your memory is; standing still amongst trees. And you can feel the water touch your skin through your clothes now and you think of your little apartment and how if you were there now you would take out your clothes and turn the hot water on and stand underneath and forget everything except the water on your skin. There’s cold water dripping down your face now and you’re still standing there and it feels like you might never move again. You are as still as stone, as part of the landscape around you as the grass.

And then the sound of the rain in the trees suddenly dies down and you can see sunlight coming in through the leaves, in that living way it does after a downpour. And all of a sudden it is quite silent and you’re standing there on the bridge and there’s light everywhere and you can smell the earth and a sparrow lands on a branch, turns its head quizzically, calls out and you finally move a little; shuffle your feet, lift your head up, pick your hands out of your pockets. You walk then slowly step by step and the water in the river is still as if it had never been touched and except for your wet coat you wonder if it had ever rained at all. You make your way across, slipping off your wet coat and placing it over your arm as you step off the bridge.