Hailstorms of Distant Glass

If all pedestrians in the world stood in the rain and looked up at once...

Hailstorms of Distant Glass

Video is a short excerpt…

Some say the stars are our eyes through which we see all possibilities at once, past and present, even the future, in ways that are incomprehensible to most pedestrians, but Owen, homebound on a rainy night highway with party drink in his blood, had no time for mystical rumination as two enormous side wheels of a northbound tractor trailer ripped the hood of his Volkswagen off, and sent the  flimsy car careening between the truck and the guardrail several times before the truck passed and allowed his car to spin off the highway where it crashed into a tree.

Darkness had swallowed the highway hours before, and car traffic was light. There were many trucks, though. The one Owen ran into chewed his car to pieces. Owen’s head smashed the windscreen.

Owen was from the United States and normally didn’t say things like windscreen, but an embracing possibility of something British had climbed into his vision as the stars signaled him with prophecies, and the Volkswagen bumpers broke off to lay a trail of rain-steamed sparks on the highway.

I won’t die this night, he said to the air trapped inside the Volkswagen before the car flew apart in all fendered directions and the air escaped through a hailstorm of glass.

So did Owen. Escape. He climbed heavy-handed from the wreckage, somehow both younger and older at the same time. He no longer wondered if there was negligible difference between life and death.

It was a true moment of stars as eyes, and after that night, Owen stopped taking life for granted. He gave up drink. He began to speak of acceptance, and everyday gifts. He asked people not to find fault everywhere.

Not an easy task. Some people, mostly pedestrians, criticized Owen, even when he changed water to wine at the wedding party.

Of course, he didn’t perform an actual miracle like in the old Jesus books. Over the long hills of dictionary updates, the sequence of words had slithered into an expression. It just meant that Owen, alive and sober, but missing his left arm from the elbow, did well when he toasted the newlyweds with a glass of mineral water.

Still, pedestrians complained that, as an smashup survivor, Owen had a grudge against death, and an unreasonable bias towards life, when the fashions of the day declared that both were equal in the windy vision, and prevailing trends, of God. Life and death were personal choices, they said, and Owen was simply too out of touch to accept such wisdom.

Owen didn’t push back. Pedestrians stayed on the sidewalk where they could be close to the crowd, and were not yet responsive to unfamiliar thoughts. They were a decent bunch nonetheless, and Owen said thanks for stopping by.

Owen lies in the grass by the river

Meanwhile, although Owen felt alone in the world, his eyes continued to grow in number. One day, as he lay amazed in the grass of a park by the river, he saw a nearly incomprehensible array of possibility for the human race. He saw the intersection of courtesy and justice, acts of sentient sharing, and the wonder of forgiveness.

He rose, went to the mayor’s office, and asked if the city would like to adopt all the homeless people, and put them to work cleaning up trash and painting bank walls with better graffiti.

What good would that do? asked the mayor, who had agreed to see Owen because of Owen’s arm stump.

They’d gain esteem, said Owen, and the banks would beautify.

Well, we need them how they are, said the mayor, and before Owen could ask if the mayor meant homeless people or banks, the mayor said he had to meet with a group of important pedestrians. He thanked Owen for stopping by, and hurried out.

If I was in charge, I would have said yes, thought Owen, and then realized that’s why he wasn’t. He went back down to the street. A light rain had started.

Some say that if all pedestrians in the world stood in the rain and looked up at once, the drops would distort their vision, and cause the towers of tradition to warp, widening their pedestrian opinion of the world, as stars can also do, but Owen, as a smashup survivor, knew, or at least suspected, that the energy it would take to perform such a miracle was more than many were willing to expend. They were a decent bunch though, even with umbrellas on their eyes. Owen stepped out of the sprinkle into a coffee shop.

Is that what it’s like? asked a voice, and Owen looked up from wiping his hand on his pants. A girl about sixteen years old stood by the window watching the sprinkle become rain. She turned to Owen.

Yes, said Owen, if you mean that heavens weep in both sorrow and joy.

That too, but I was thinking of my mother, said the girl.

What of her?

Her car hit a torn off bumper on the highway one night, and spun out of control.

How is she?

They said she chose to die, but I don’t think so.

You’re probably right, said Owen, although he knew that there were people, mostly pedestrians stuck in the stalled traffic of their lives, but even creative geniuses, who one day awoke from the same tired dream, sipped from the same tired cup, and realized that their footsteps were also exhausted. They went to the pill cabinet or the gun drawer, loaded their palm or the chamber, and swallowed.

And your father? asked Owen.

He drove a truck, said the girl, northbound in the rain, and never came back.

That leaves you alone when storms come, said Owen. He started to scratch his left forearm, but it wasn’t there.

And when clouds blow out to sea, too, said the girl.

Of course, said Owen. He turned to look at the coffee menu above the counter.

The girl stepped to a table, and motioned Owen to join her. He dipped his head, and left the menu to parade its prices alone on the wall. They sat.

The girl placed her fingers on the table as if it were a piano, and tapped a toneless muted melody. Do you think we’ll ever find innocence again? she asked.

No, said Owen. Years flow from our dreams, and replace it with holy rage.

The girl halted her phantom recital, knit her fingers into a single hut. Her face massaged Owen’s words.

You have an offbeat way with the world, she said. Outside, the rain intensified.

Yes, said Owen. It helps to cut ties with the pointless parts of our education.

The girl nodded. Her eyes grew a celestial body that flickered for a moment. She too had been chosen. Far above the clouds that wept over the city, Owen observed the girl from a great distance through the scores of stars that had become his vision, and saw that one day she would choreograph the world of medicine into the steps and swirls needed to cure disease.

I think we’ll know each other, said Owen. I’ll age, and you’ll be my guide.

That sounds intriguing, said the girl. And odd. She laughed.

Well, said Owen, I just mean that one day, when my body returns to the highway that put my life on loan, you’ll show me how to survive again.

We’ll complete a circle?

Yes, something like that.

It was an idea that wouldn’t take hold in pedestrians, but Owen had found, among the possibilities, a girl alone who, despite her hardships, or perhaps because of them, sat nearly weightless on the authority of her life. She was disconnected from gray routine. And where there was one, there were many. They would unite and grow.

Would you like to see the world through a thousand eyes? asked Owen.

Now? In the rain?

Yes.

Okay.

They rose from the table, walked outside. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Owen and the girl raised their faces to the wet heavens, and breathed great moist gulps. As the world hunched by, the rain transformed their vision of what had always been into that which was yet to come. A large truck rolled past, but it was southbound, and had no reach.

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Hello and thanks for reading Dynamic Creed. I hope you enjoyed this piece. Please let me know what you think about Owen and his experiences. Always great to hear your thoughts. All the best, Victor David.

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