Delicate Rain

by Mitch Goth

  The night went by in a blur of bright smears of light and electric wind as soon as the pills set in. Ben proved he could drive in the worst conditions as he managed to keep his composure behind the wheel.

  They spent what felt like hours trying to find a rave of some kind around the city, as Rain insisted they try their hardest to find one. Despite their run of terrible luck when it came to finding a party, it was nearly three o'clock in the morning by the time they stopped looking.

  Luckily, in their euphoria, the both of them were eventually perfectly quaint with driving around the city leaning out their windows and letting the wind take them to whatever heaven it felt like transporting them to.

  Even in her private heaven, Rain couldn't help but be bewildered by Ben's ability to drive as well as he did while hanging out the window. This amazement in his ability only became another portion of her ecstasy. The bewilderment intermixed with the other feelings and emotions swirling in her head and created the most perfect stew of thoughts a person could have, in her opinion anyway.

  They drove for around for another hour, seemingly aimlessly. In her state, Rain didn't even notice they'd left the city, much less notice when they went off the highway and onto a thin dirt road. It wasn't until a low hanging branch slid its leaves across her as she leaned out the window that she was shocked back to a blurry, beautiful reality.

  "What's happening? Where are we?" Rain looked around, confused. Her vision didn't allow for seeing anything beyond the headlights.

  There weren't any other car lights or streetlights to construct their wondrous sky tapestries. There weren't any lights at all, the world was pitch dark. The shadowy, endless darkness shattered Rain's euphoric paradise. It was replaced by a flurry of frightful feelings. Where were they going? Where were they? What was going to happen, and when? Every question was piercing.

  "We're going to a place," Ben said, his voice slow and low.

  "What place? Where?" Rain's words came faster than bullets.

  "Somewhere over the rainbow," Ben grinned. "Don't worry or nothin', we're almost there. We've been driving out here for a while, you're just noticing?"

  "I was busy, I was in other places," Rain said defensively.

  "Where were you?"

  "Over the rainbow, bitch."

  The both of them couldn't stop themselves from laughing at this. Ben laughed so hard that he rested his head on the steering wheel, finally showing a shortfall in his driving as he nearly slid the Cadillac right into a roadside ditch. He was quick to correct his mistake, and went right back to uproarious laughter. Rain even managed to find humor in them almost crashing. Neither could pin point why exactly they were laughing after a while, but this thought in itself brought its own hilarity, and so the laughter continued.

  The chuckling continued even as Ben stopped the car and the two started walking clumsily through the pitch dark countryside. A dim orange color in the horizon from the distant city was all the color that came, everything else was black. The only noise was the earth beneath their feet and the multitude of insects making their confused symphony in the brush and trees. Rain was still reluctant to move, but the fear had mostly subsided.

  "Wow," Ben sighed as he walked, leading them deeper into the darkness, "this stuff really is gonna make us rich."

  "I told you," Rain gloated. "Best damn thing in the whole world."

  "Fuckin' right. Forty grand ain't anywhere near enough to charge for the bags. We really should double it. Then we'd be billionaires."

  "That's pushing it," Rain admitted, "maybe when people start getting addicted you can sell it for that much."

  "I can't wait for them to get addicted," Ben laughed. He saw the malice in wishing addiction on people, but he didn't care at this point. He was too fixated on how great the open air felt, how the countryside smelled, and how it amazing it would be once they got to where they were going. He didn't have to wait long.

  The duo made the trek over a large hill and they saw just what they were walking for once they reached the top. The view was dark, yet breathtaking. The sun had just begun peaking up from that side of the horizon. Warm colors flooded their brains. The yellows, reds and oranges pushed the blackness of pre-dawn away.

  All the apprehension and anxiety Rain felt was instantly washed out of her mind, replaced by the familiar feeling of overwhelming happiness and warmth. It was at this point that Rain finally saw just where they'd walked off to. All around them were bright orange begonias, as far as the eye could see. She recognized this place.

  "I ran through here," she pointed out.

  "What do you mean?" Ben replied, confused.

  "When I first left home, I ran through this field to get to Kansas City," Rain explained. "I ran right through here. Of course, it was day, so I could see all the flowers a lot better. But it wasn't nearly as beautiful as it is now," she snickered as she looked around the area. All the orange from the flowers flowed just like lights, becoming a gorgeous addition to the luminescent masterpiece the infant sunrise birthed.

  "Small world," Ben said distantly, he too was taken by the beauty of the scenery.

  "So what are we doing out here?"

  "This is one of my favorite places," Ben explained. "I just like it. We parked in the middle of the begonias, it was just too dark to see anything."

  Rain looked down and realized they were standing in a street-wide trail through the field. It looked like it'd never been driven on at all in its existence, but it had her perplexed all the same. She looked back to see it stretched far back into the shadows. It extended far off into the hills in front of her too, seeming to connect to the horizon eventually.

  "Why didn't we drive all the way over here?" she asked.

  "I don't know this part well enough to drive through it in the dark," Ben replied. "Not to mention high as a kite," he laughed.

  "Very true," Rain chuckled as well, nearly creating a new bout of endless laughter.

  "You wanna know what I like the most about bein' out here?" Ben looked over at her, an odd devilishness in his gaze.

  "What's that?" Rain spoke slowly, making sure her words came out right. She was too fixated on the colors now. The fixation was so great, she didn't even see Ben draw his gun. The sharp report of the weapon shook her back to the world swiftly. She spun to see him holding the smoking pistol, aiming out into the field. "What the fuck are you doing?"

  "Watch that flower," he aimed to a nearby begonia.

  "Why?"

  "Just watch."

  Rain did as she was told. She watched the flower, but kept her attention on Ben through the corner of her eye. She could see him cocking the weapon and aiming again. In an instant another shot went flying, blasting right though the flower, sending brilliant, fiery orange going in every direction. The sight was nothing short of spectacular.

  "Oh my God," she said breathlessly. The newly added color of the exploded begonia was simply too much to keep her eyes off of. Even after all the pedals settled to the dirt, the color they created when the bullet shattered the plant stayed hovering in the increasingly beautiful sky painting. "God bless Delicate Rain."

  "You wanna give it a try," Ben held the gun out butt first towards her.

  For a moment, Rain hesitated. She'd only fired a gun once before, and that was to take the life of the surviving KC Devil in the alleyway. She could obviously fire the weapon well enough, but to aim at a target as small as a flower and actually hit it seemed like too much. Especially in her utter lack of sobriety.

  Despite all her pauses, Rain finally took the weapon and aimed it down the hill to a nearby flower. Her finger wrapped into the trigger guard. She was ready to fire and began tightening her grip around the trigger when a new thought stopped her. The gun lowered and she looked over to Ben.

  "Won't somebody hear all this?" she inquired.

  "Nah," he assured confidently, "we're way far out. Whoever owns this place doesn't live anywhere near close. Closest house is like five or seven miles away o
r somethin'. We're fine, trust me, I've done this enough times to know."

  "Ever done it high?"

  "High, drunk, but never like this," he chuckled. "This is amazing."

  "I knew you'd love it," Rain raised the gun again and looked down the sights as best as she could. Slowly but surely she took steady aim at the flower she'd seen before. Her finger went back into the trigger guard and squeezed swiftly.

  The gun popped off another bullet in a flurry of shocking sounds and splendid sparks. It took a second for Rain to realize what'd happened. But as soon as her vision refocused, she saw that the flower was no more. The orange pedals fluttered in every direction, creating bright streams of orange in her vision.

  "Good shot," Ben commended with a nod.

  "Damn right it was," Rain celebrated confidently. "I'm only the best damn gun in all the Midwest."

  "Careful over there," Ben toned down her pride. "You're just a beginner."

  "The best damn beginner in the world," she retorted slyly.

  "I'll settle for a decent beginner."

  "Sold," she agreed, handing the gun back to Ben. Her eyes quickly darted back to the sky as soon as she saw he'd gotten a good grasp on the gun and she could stop paying mind. Ben was certainly right when he said they were going over the rainbow, although right now it seemed as if they were inside of one.

  "Penny for your thoughts?" he saw her distant expression as he holstered his weapon.

  "Hell no," she shook her head, "I'm not selling shit for a penny."

  At that, a new fit of unstoppable laughter ensued. They could hardly keep themselves from falling, which brought their seemingly collective mind to Deacon's balance troubles, which brought on far more side-splitting hilarity. It didn't take long for one of them to finally lose their balance.

  Rain was the one to tumble first, but in a flash of panic she grabbed at the unstable structure of Ben to keep herself from falling. In the end he fell over just as fast as she could pull him.

  "Ouch," Rain chuckled still, rolling onto her back before looking over to Ben, who was on his back next to her. "You alright?"

  "Yeah," he said in a pained yet humor-filled groan. "I'm just peachy. The view isn't bad from down here," he pointed up the sky.

  Rain looked to the sky and was mesmerized in an instant. The stars painted their own picture. They didn't move like the lights or the flower pedals did, and were rather dim in the light of the rising sun, but they were a fantastic sight nonetheless. All they needed to do was sit there and twinkle and it was like looking at an endless dark sea of diamonds.

  "Not bad at all," she sighed tiredly. "Amazing really."

  "I'll vouch for that," Ben replied, sounding equally fatigued.

  "Should we head back to the car?" Rain wondered. "It's getting really late...or, early," she smiled at herself.

  "It's so far away," Ben responded carelessly. "And the ground ain't too uncomfortable here."

  "I have to admit, its not too bad," Rain nodded. The dirt and grass below her felt like a thick, memory foam mattress. Just a new sensation to add to the ever-present euphoria.

  "Rain, can I ask you a question?" Ben wondered weakly.

  "Sure, shoot," she shrugged.

  "How'd you come up with Delicate Rain? I mean, I get its like you name or whatever, but I've been on this stuff for hours now and I wouldn't describe the feeling that way."

  "I guess its always kinda in my mind. Some things just kinda stick."

  "But why Delicate Rain?" Ben asked, puzzled. "It just seems like kinda a weird thing to keep in your head."

  "Well, honestly, my mom always used to call me that," Rain admitted. "Back when I was younger I was always scared of things and really shy."

  "You shy? No way," Ben joked.

  "Believe it or not I was," she continued. "I was just so scared and delicate, my mom came up with the nickname Delicate Rain. Unfortunately, it still kinda sticks around in my family."

  "That's unfortunate," Ben said the only thing he could think to say. "That is very unfortunate."

  "You have no idea," Rain chuckled lightly, her eye lids lowering slowly but surely. "Its terrible, especially now. But, the saddest part is that I've always kind of like it. I guess that's why its always in my damn brain. So there you go, that's how your million dollar drug got its name."

  "Billion dollar drug," Ben corrected. "Not million, billion, with a 'B'. You said billion yourself."

  "Whatever."

  After that the talking slowed down significantly and in no time all the conversation stopped. Rain's eyes got heavier and heavier as she focused more on the fading night sky. She managed to block out the advancing morning and embrace her exhaustion. It didn't take long for both of them to drift off from their pleasurable reality and into separate dreamscapes.

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