The Song of the Storm
A Short Story of San Antonio Rain
Max Outcalt, a junior at Northwestern University studying Political Science, presents a vivid and emotional journey through the storm-soaked streets of San Antonio, capturing the essence of memory and loss.
I know how to smell incoming rain. The sky goes heavy and wet, smelling like how a dull knife cuts through butter or how a bruise aches when turning red to purple. I sniff the air and smell rusty silver.
“There’s a storm coming.” I bend down to scoop up the scattered coins the schoolboys had tossed my way, nickels and dimes shining like the raindrops that I know will fall in an hour. Maybe two, if we’re particularly unlucky. The pavement scratches at my knuckles, and my knees grumble with my voice as I rise back up. “Get to class, kids. It’ll be a bad one.”
One of the boys squints at the sky. Marcus, I think he’s called. “You sure?” His eyes gleam. It’s still morning, but his curly hair is already damp with sweat.
“I can smell it.”
“You can’t.” That’s Pedro. Or maybe Pablo.
“You can’t. I can.”
Pedro/Pablo scoffs. “It’s like a million degrees.”
“Nature prepares for rain by scorching the earth.” The words tumble from my mouth. “It’s something my… my family says. The hotter it gets, the closer we are to storms.”
“Is that true?” Marcus takes a step closer. “We must be getting a damn monsoon then.”
“Could be.” I roll back on my heels and drum my fingers on the neck of my guitar. “Now, go to school. You don’t want to get caught out in the rain.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be alright. Go.”
The kids vanish into a heat haze, Marcus glancing back at me with big brown eyes that look away before I do. My fingers go to pluck the A string on my guitar, and the note is a bullet that cracks through the dry stillness of the air. I sniff the air again. Definitely a storm. I glance up at Cortell Street, at the shadow of the street sign behind me. It stretches down the empty road, crossing over the crack sealings, pointing North, piercing my own shadow straight through.
My fingers are looped under the guitar strings tied around my wrist before I realize I’m moving my hands. The metal strings cut into my index finger, so I press deeper in. It’s a sharp gasp of clear air after a lifetime of shallow, dusty breaths.
I don’t think about who gave me those strings. Even if I wanted to remember the callused fingers and bleach-stained cargo pants, I couldn’t. That sort of thinking requires color, and right now, San Antonio is sepia. Color’s got no place here.
—
I hadn’t walked an inch by the time the clouds blot out the sun. The grey ache of a new sunburn blisters my neck. My shadow would have been below me, I reckon, but now, the sky roils, and the heat haze has been replaced with misty darkness.
“Lord, help me,” I mutter. Sandpaper wraps around my voice. Wind flattens my shirt across my back. I sling my guitar over my shoulder and shove my empty hands deep into my pockets. “Those kids better have listened.”
San Antonio stretches out around me, a cage of orange bricks and sickly trees trapped by tar. A drop of rain smashes into the ground before me, and the earth gobbles it up. The dusty silence of San Antonio cracks.
“Hey there, Maria. Long time, no see.”
The wind whips away her words, but their growl shakes the breath from my lungs. Above me, thunder mimics her voice.
“I’m going crazy.” I press my fingertips deep into my skull. “I gotta get home. Sleep. Drink.”
“Water’s coming, darling.”
“I gotta get home before the storm.”
“You ain’t gonna make it in time.” I try to take a step, but her voice has shackled my ankles. “You know I’m right. The earth is scorched, like you said. It’s long past time for a flooding.”
“Jesus Christ.” Something deep inside me yawns open, an explosion of dust and space bursting inside my belly. “God Almighty. I’m losing my mind.”
“No, you ain’t. You’re too smart for that.” Her breath is cool on my neck.
“That’s the wind, Maria.” I spit out the words. “Yeah. That’s just the wind. You’re going crazy, and…”
Thunder roars again, closer than before. “Stop saying you’re going crazy.” She chuckles like she did when I told her I wanted to leave for Chicago. When I said that, I didn’t mind leaving that city of chrome and cold, because she needed me. When I said that she would get better. “You never did like the truth. Even now, you can’t look at me.” She chuckles again, and I want to scream. “Turn around, darling.”
My fingernails leave bloody smiles in my palm. My guitar weighs a hundred tons. My feet are lead. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You do know.” The thunder is right above me now, rattling my guitar, my bones, my skin, my heart. “You know everything. You know this city. You know that guitar. You just don’t know you. Yourself. You can’t crack your ribs apart and look at the soul beneath.”
“You are dead.” Hammers crash above my head.
“Yes.” Thin fingers drape across my forearm, briefly, like mist. “You think dead people can’t find you?”
“You are dead. You can’t be here.”
“If you’d turn yourself around, you’d be able to see me.”
Her guitar strings are embers around my wrist. The clouds begin to weep, one by one, dropping tears that join my own. “I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t. I just don’t.”
“Turn around, darling.” Wind howls. Lighting arcs across the sky. The dust is torn away from my hair, and the dirt on my boots turns to mud. Foul chords are played on untuned guitars. “Turn around.”
“Please.”
“Turn around.”
I do.
“Ma.”
Her teeth gleam. “Maria.”
I am sandstone. I am ash. “I miss you.”
“Well, I’d hope so.” Her eyes softened. “I do too.”
“Am I going mad?” I don’t dare to blink. “Answer honest.”
She smiles. “No. You can touch me if you want.” She spreads her arms out wide. “Go on.”
I reach out and press against her stomach. She wears the slip that her grandmother had embroidered for her, a frayed thing that hangs loose from her bones. But color loops around the dress, swirls of gold and violet, sunset reds and cucumber greens, like a firework in the storm. In life, it was rough, the yarn stiff and coarse under my fingers.
But now, my fingers go straight through her.
“You are dead.”
“I am here.”
“You need to leave me alone, Ma.”
Her hands embrace mine, and fog envelopes me. “I am your mother. I cannot. I will not.”
I swallow hard. My stomach hurts. The sky flashes bright with electricity and shatters me. “Please.”
She looks into my eyes, and I can only see swirling white. Her gaze is a quilt on a July day. “Sing with me, Maria. Sing with me, and I’ll go.”
I ache to strum my guitar. Her guitar. The one she gave me a decade ago. “What song?”
“You know the one.”
I do. I take the guitar from my back and don’t bother to tune it. What’s the point? Only one audience member here. Shivers run through my fingers, but they ain’t from the rain clinging to my body. I clear my throat and breathe in the smell of rain.
Thunder gathers and the lights shut down.
Lighting crackles and your breathing’s gone.
And your heart is pounding like a beating drum.
This is the song of the storm.
Take my body and bury it somewhere far.
Take my honey and keep him safe from harm.
Take my darlings and make sure they’re still loved.
This is the song of the storm.
In the quietude inside the yellow eye,
I’ll discover you. Together, we’ll be fine.
And the fullest moon is nothing to our light.
This is the song of the storm.
You are my song of the storm.
—
It’s only when I open my eyes that I realize I have even closed them. I stand alone, and the deluge is just a fine, quiet mist. My boots are properly soaked through. My guitar is dripping. The world smells new.
And in the puddle at my feet, the reflection of a rainbow stretches across the sky. San Antonio had color again.
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