Lightning cracked in the distance. Simon Sanchester sat on a swinging chair on the wooden porch of his house. The street was dark and the air felt heavy with the impending rain. The chain holding the bench squeaked as he rocked back and forth. The light from his cigar illuminated the cracking wood walls. The street was dark beyond the porch. Simon could see the outlines of the surrounding houses, all larger and newer than his. He filled his cheeks with cigar smoke and held it in his mouth until he felt the top of his inside cheek tickle from the heat. He blew the smoke out over the low porch walls and watched it expand until it combined and disappeared into the surrounding air.

Ash covered the ground around Simon from the three cigars he had worked through over the long night. Simon stared into the distance for approaching cars from the end of the cul-de-sac. Night was always the loneliest part of his day. The world quieted and his connections to it felt tenuous. He felt outside the web that held people together. His phone rested next to him on the bench. It had ceased glowing red from when he had last checked the time. It had flashed two in the morning with no missed calls. The phone’s silence teased him with its insistence. A strong urge filled him to call Penelope. He picked up the phone and looked at the numbers. His mind’s fingers already worked through the pattern that had reached Penelope thousands of times. She had been clear: he was not to call her. He hesitated and put the phone back on the bench.

Simon chewed hard on the papery end of the cigar. The lightning continued but the rain refused to fall. The air grew heavier. He felt like a weightlifter holding a barbell across his shoulders where an invisible spotter kept adding weight to the ends of the bar. He felt his shoulders and feet shake from the effort to keep his body upright. He wished the sky would break open to relieve the weight of the Texas humidity. Thinking about Texas made him smile. It was so unlike where he had grown up. On the east coast, a heavy rain during a hot summer night would bring immediate relief from the heat. In Houston, rain somehow managed not to have an effect on humidity. Humidity and rain coexisted in this same place at the same time. It was one of the many strange phenomena that he found when he followed Penelope to Texas.

It had been five years since Penelope moved to Texas. Simon thought of the phone conversations they had during the first two years. He would visit as often as she would allow. He moved into this rickety house almost three years ago. It was five miles away from Penelope’s apartment. She went with him to choose this house. They looked at fancier and larger houses, but this was the one she wanted for him. He had hoped it was the one she wanted for both of them, but she still lived in her apartment in the Galleria area of Houston. He went to her apartment but she rarely visited his house. He had asked her many times if he should sell it and buy something closer or better. She always smiled at his questions and assured him that she liked it well enough, that it was right for him and she should not worry about such things. He tried to take assurances from this, but it grew more difficult as she visited him less and less over the years.

Penelope called earlier in the morning before Simon was fully awake. She broke into a dream he had been having where he imagined himself spinning in orbit around the earth. Although the earth was lit brilliantly beneath him, it did not brighten the blackness of space or the pinholes of the surrounding stars and galaxies. As he floated miles above the blue and green earth, space surrounded him like a hot blanket. His body rotated on an axis near his waist above the large earth, his limbs frozen with his arms and legs outstretched as if he preparing to fight or run from something he could not see. He was not frightened at that moment, however. Even the fact that his body could not move did not scare him. He still wore his gray sweatshirt and blue boxers, the same clothing he had fallen asleep in that night. He saw himself rotating above the earth, and realized that he was not inside his body; his mind had left his body most likely by the same force that had lifted and then frozen his body in space. Simon looked beyond his rotating body, and into the far distance, where he saw a twinkling light coming from what looked like a satellite. The satellite was stationary above the earth, but its light flared and softened to an almost rhythmic beat that he realized had no relation to the rotation of his body. From this distance, the light looked like a lighthouse leading a boat in on a foggy night. His body continued to rotate, unaware of the light or of his floating self that felt drawn to flashing light. He felt himself pull away from the light until he found his body between his self and the light. His body’s head was bent slightly into its chest and the eyes were locked in an open, empty stare that focused somewhere beyond his outstretched knees. As fast as he had pulled away from the light, he felt the direction change and he found himself approaching the light faster and faster. He flew around his body and moved closer to the satellite. The light grew as he approached, but he could see nothing behind the light. Whatever satellite or body held the light remained hidden behind the growing light. The light changed frequencies and moved to a red glow as he neared. The blinking slowed and soon the red glare covered his entire vision. It was then that he awoke to the sound of the phone ringing and its accompanying red flashing light. He reached for the handset and after a few missed presses, found the large circular talk button.

Penelope was on the other end. She sounded delighted in having woken him. He said something about spacemen and glowing lights, and she laughed at his confusion. Simon lost the rest of the conversation. He could not recall what they had spoken of that morning. For the rest of the day, he did not hear from her. He had sent her messages but without response. This was not unusual. She could be very busy during the day and it was like her to lose all track of time. Knowing this did not make things easier for Simon.

He stood up and stretched his back. He felt the ridiculousness of the situation. Penelope would call when she would call. He would see her tonight as he saw her on most weekends. Perhaps because of her lateness, she would drive over to his house to spend the night. The thought buoyed his feelings for a moment before he found himself staring again out to the edges of the cul-de-sac, beyond which the darkness hid the remaining world.

Simon sucked the last of the smoke from the cigar before flinging it onto the side lawn. He watched the fiery ashes burn on the ground before walking down and around the porch to the yard. He moved as slow as possible in an attempt to avoid sweating. It did not work. By the time he reached the burning cigar, he felt two drips of water stream down the sides of his ribcage. He bent over and picked up the cigar, squishing the lit part until the red embers, mixing with the dirt, gave up the light. His lawn was mostly dirt, the grass having burnt off during the worst heat of the summer, which had descended over the past three weeks. He wondered why he had thrown the cigar. He thought back to that small feeling of rebellion. It was his yard and his cigar, and if he felt like throwing it, he would throw it. He felt like a small child trying to shed his dependence. It was such a silly feeling for a grown man to have. He did not need to act out to express himself. Even that thought did not fully explain his actions.

He walked down the two wooden steps to the front path that led to the street. He dropped the cigar into the plastic garbage can and closed the lid tightly. The thunder sounded closer, giving away a deep rumble that almost matched with the deeply layered flashing clouds. There was no breeze. He walked to the edge of the street and watched the sky through the skinny short trees. When lightning flashed, he could see the anemic leaves of the trees. They barely clung to the branches, their edges turned inward and crispy from the scorching daytime heat.

The rain started suddenly. One moment everything was still and the next water filled the air as if he found himself on the wrong end of an upended bathtub. Simon raised his head and allowed the water to pour over his face. The relief was instantaneous. He went from wet with perspiration to wet with rain in less than the time it took for the three strikes of lightning to illuminate the low flying cloud bank. Simon lifted his arms away from his sides, and with his palms lifted to the sky to catch the water, he gave in to a sudden need to spin in a tight circle. The rain flew off him as it does a boat’s propeller when lifted from the water. The heavy weight that had weighed him down only moments before lifted as the water soared off his fingertips. He opened his mouth and drank deeply of the rain. It tasted slightly acidic. He had always imaged that the Texas rain would be unclean from the surrounding refineries and chemical plants. But it did not taste unclean. It tasted only slightly processed, similar to overly clean and mineral-free bottled water.

He ran his hands through his wet hand, his fingers drawing deep valleys in his dripping hair. He wiped the water from his eyes and ran back to the porch, jumping from puddle to puddle. Where crunchy brown grass had been moments before, large muddy puddles had formed. The ground was not hungry for the rain. Even though the tops were as dry as bone, the underground had had its fill of water months before.

Simon returned to his porch and sat on the first step. Even though he was soaked, he still felt hot. The immediate relief the rain had provided had given way as he realized that the water did nothing to relieve the heat. His linen pants stuck to his legs and he watched as water poured off his legs and into the ground in front of his house. The lone light coming from his neighbor’s house reflected in each drop, and he watched them fall onto the pool of water that had formed underneath the step. Penelope loved to walk in the rain. She did not like umbrellas or raincoats or waiting for the brief thundershowers to pass. He always tried to hold an umbrella for her during the worst of the storms. When he wasn’t looking, she would duck away from the umbrella, and streak away, leaving him to chase after her. She would laugh as he approached her with the umbrella turned inside out from his brief run. She was beautiful when she was wet, and she knew it. The thought of her walking in the rain without him near returned him to a more pensive mood. He climbed up the stairs to the porch and returned to the bench.

The rain, which had started as bucketfuls of showers, had slowed to an insistent pounding. The lightning had moved off and he the thunder was barely audible in the distance. He watched the water drip from his clothing and tried to ignore the feel of clinging insistence of his wet clothing on his wet skin. Spinning in the rain had seemed a good idea at the time, but there was always a price to be paid for his more crazy moments. He had tried to explain this price to Penelope many times. She was always amused by his explanations.

Word count: 2,108

Word total: 2,108

Words remaining: 47,892

In the past, the first days were always scary. Today was different. I had few expectations going in, and I just started writing. It was terrible, of course, but it was words. Not surprisingly, nothing happened. I had one piece of action planned for today, and I never got there. Simon, my protagonist, started on his porch and ended on his porch. He was wetter than he started but in no way changed. Something may happen tomorrow. I never can tell.