Smile

S m i l e 

It’s raining.

You feel the rain wet your hair and the drops fall on your face, while, with an uncertain step, you cross the now wet road.

You don’t have a destination, you move by inertia.

You walk relying on your little feet, you doubt they know where they are taking you, but, after all, it is better this way. You don't have the strength to think about a destination, so you are grateful to them for taking the initiative.

You need to get away, you need to rinse away the images that you have in your mind, you need to be alone.

Lightning lights up the evening, thunder follows shortly after.

The silence shakes for a moment, then everything returns quietly and for a while the only noise, besides that of the rain ticking an imaginary rhythmic tune, is that of the incessant flow of your thoughts.

No one can stop the thunder from following the lightning. He will do it anyway, he is faithful and devoted to him, he would not leave him alone.

The lightning is incomplete without the thunder, it is only light.

Thunder can't live without lightning, it's just noise. It is when they are together that they have a reason for being. It is when they are together that they have a purpose.

You were both like that. Like thunder and lightning. Inseparable and unpredictable.

Noisy and annoying.

Impossible to tell what would you both do, impossible to stop the thunder once the lightning had struck. Impossible to keep up with the two of you. 

You stop, unable to remember how to breathe regularly, unable to help your mind to grasp an image, one of the many that crowd your mind.

A shiver runs through your back, your clothes have stuck to you but right now, it doesn't matter. You perceive them as a second skin that shields you from the cruelty of life, defends you from the raging weather.

You observe your reflection in a puddle, it returns the face of a lost little girl of 10 years old.

I am sorry for your loss!

No one can stop the thunder from following the lightning, but the lightning can tear the night so much that the light of the lightning blanks and the sound of the thunder drowns.

The lightning has struck you this afternoon, destroying you and separating you forever from him.

I am sorry for your loss!

You avoid thinking about it, but the more you go on and the more those words fill your mind and heart, canceling any previous thoughts.

What will the world be like beyond the puddle?

Maybe it's a world where you are not alone, a world where you don't feel abandoned. Maybe it's a world in which that afternoon was never lived.

A world where his eyes are still twinkling, his hair disheveled and unruly, and hands still warm.

The feet dragged you to your happy place, the park in front of the house. You can hear your Auntie calling out for you from across the road! 

“ Poonam, what are you doing? You are getting wet. Come back inside! Now”

***

Smile.

“Always smile, Poonam! You keep smiling and you will see that everything will be for the best. ".

Her relatives had reminded her several times. Whether it was because they cared so much about her happiness or more simply because at that moment they had nothing else to say, Poonam never knew.

Smile.

And it was raining. The raindrops wet her face and she was glad. They would have served to confuse her tears, which slowly flowed down her delicate cheeks, stained with tiny freckles.

Smile.

It was weird. That storm was not expected for today. Who knows, maybe it was a sign of greeting from the world, addressed to him, the one who had left her. So alone, without warning.

Of course, she could continue to think of herself as a lucky child. She still had a father whom she saw just two or three times a month and who would bring her gigantic gifts when he came home, perhaps to apologize for his long absences.

She had a mother she could visit once in a while, when the prison guards would let her.

She had an elderly grandmother who spent whole days in bed.

She had an aunt who remembered her birthday every four years.

But she no longer had him. Her grandfather was gone. That grandfather who raised her, the only person who truly had loved her. There was no longer her best playmate with her, her perfect accomplice, that man who held her in his arms in the evening to tell her stories of princesses and fantastic worlds.

Smile.

In front of that coffin, she just she couldn't.

"A heart attack is likely to happen at this age." A well-dressed gentleman has told that when had come to their house two days ago.

Probably yes, but not her grandfather! He was so fine, he was so cheerful!

 Smile.

No. She couldn't. Not without him. He was the only one who had really made her smile.

She still remembered that moment. When she had sneaked into the living room to take him by surprise and scare him. When she found him, he sat motionless on the sofa and she simply sat in his arms.

Smile.

Yet he was smiling! Yes, she was sure, her grandfather was smiling. That's why she felt so strangely calm since the first time she found him. Poonam raised her big brown eyes to scan the gray sky above her. 

She did not like the incessant rain that kept falling on this gray city. She wanted the lightning that pierces the black clouds. She wanted the thunder that echoes in the silence. She wanted the rainbow that smugly laughs at the storm. She wanted the sun that victoriously breaks through the rainy clouds.

But instead, the rain continues to fall incessantly and thousands of drops wet her yellow raincoat.

Yellow like that flower that chases the diurnal star, heedless of the bee panting for the nectar.

Yellow as the sun that spiteful enjoys playing hide and seek behind those clouds.

A noise distracted her from her thoughts. A thunder.

Smile.

And slowly a thought come into her mind.

That must have been her grandfather. He must have scored. He was winning! Yes, because he had explained to her that during thunderstorms, the thunder was caused by the grandparents who played football in the sky and scored points.

"Come on grandpa, I cheer for you!"

And she finally smiled.

And wrapped in her yellow raincoat, she jumped here and there to avoid the endless puddles on the sidewalk!

Splash! 

She, new Moses, jumping with both feet into a small pool of water, divided this little Red Sea and allowed invisible ants to cross it; soon, however, the rain took possession of the tiny pond. And she run home, wrapped in her yellow raincoat, her sun on this gray day.