His world had been comprised on hastily constructed philosophies, which upon close examination, had failed him and promptly collapsed. Four in the morning, the end of December. Watching rain’s staccato dance against his midnight window, he sighed. With nothing to ground him, he drifted like stinging jellies in jet black sea. Even she, who foreswore forever in his arms, packed suitcase and fled down the spiral staircase to rain-soaked street. Nothing left but to don his blue raincoat, torn at the shoulder, and disappear into those dark rain-lashed waters beneath the bridge. His farewell note signed “sincerely, a friend.”

Wren’s fingers hovered above her keyboard for a short moment – then deleted the passage. She sighed, reaching for flowered boots, ratty faded blue raincoat, and butterfly menagerie umbrella. Rush down steps and into misting night air. In her head, she rewrote the paragraph, erased it, and began again. Mud-puddle jumping, watching herself in the vacant-eyed storefront windows, she skittered along. Words forming and dancing away. Echoes in the alleys she passed. Her self-editor, self-critic an enemy never sleeping. Her relationship with writing was a complicated one. Complex enough to be a Leonard Cohen song.

© Lorraine

Writing in the raw incorporated the opening sentence by Dylan for mlmm first line friday 12.05.17; mlmm writing prompt 207 stories by 5: chose: complex relationships; Wren; famous blue raincoat (Leonard Cohen)*; window; rainy *borrowed song fragments throughout.

image: Tsuneaki Hiramatsu