Everything happened so fast.
The music contract.
The fame.
The wealth.
It all ended just as fast.
The money.
The fame.
The contract.
Now Rayne sat on the edge of his bed, facing the window, reflecting on the death of his band member, the lead singer, Jimbo. Rayne gripped his head in anger, furious at himself for being unable to remember the car accident. Every time, he drew a blank. All he could remember was the faded light and Jimbo’s face as he turned to Rayne seated in the passenger seat. Rayne passed his fingers through his black hair again.
It raced over in his head again and again unable to reason whether it was a smile or a frown on the face of Jimbo.
Did he see the car coming? Was he begging for death at that moment? Or was it Jimbo’s classic “we’re fucked” expression.
In the end there were three caskets and three tombstones that read:
Reiko
H-ma
Jimbo
Rayne, even at the time of the funeral, imagined the fourth casket and the tombstone with his name on it.
Either way, there was no one left. Rayne was on his own. Sitting on his one mattress bed looking out the window that only gave a view of the brick wall to the apartment next to him. But he watched the rain hit the brick building
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He stepped off the front stoop of his apartment wearing his black leather jacket, v-neck shirt, work pants, and work boots. He looked into the sky and cursed the rain that fell harder on his head than it seemed to fall from the window.
But not only did he curse the rain but those steel bars that blocked off the upper levels of the world from the lower levels. He saw the soles of the wealthier walking across the steel bars, blocking light, that was already limited, as they passed. He used to be one that walked the above levels with money and fame but now he was condemned to the world below.
Rayne walked down the block trying to make it to the pay phone. The air was the usual dust and smoke while debris from the upper world fell to the lower levels. A steam current suddenly made its way down from the upper level. Rayne covered his mouth, unable to breath in the toxic steam as readily as everyone else in the lower district. He swore under his breath unable to control his fit of coughing.
He arrived at the pay phone and ruffled his hair. He looked to the bars above to check the location of the sun in the sky. It was something around 9:00am.
It should be ringing any second.
The phone rang, but Rayne waited
Two rings. Stop. Then three rings after. That’s when Rayne answered.
The first word of the day uttered from his mouth was:
“Hello…”
“Rayne is that you? Are you okay?” The sweet voice said on the line. The same voice that raised him and held him in a gentle embrace was now the same voice that rebuked him when he wanted to pursue music, the same voice that ignored him when he was famous was now the same voice who wanted him home.
“Yes mother.” Rayne replied in vain.
“Please come home. We can get you all the medical treatment you need. Just please come home.”
“We’re going over this again? I’m not going back. You didn’t wanna help me when I told you I was diagnosed with it, but now that your precious husband is on his deathbed you want to get me help?” Rayne let on a smile of disbelief. “It doesn’t work that way mother. You said it yourself, once rebuked always rebuked.”
“Ray, he’s your father! You would let him die?! What has he ever done to you….you ingrate!”
“That’s exactly it! He's done nothing for me!! Nothing! All he is is mommy’s little puppet. Right mother? A tool? You aren’t done sucking the life out of him yet so you want me to keep him alive just a bit longer to take all he’s worth. You aren't concerned about my condition or his!”
“How dare you speak to your mother that way?! This is your responsibility! His business was your responsibility!! As the first son you should here for your father and…”
Soon the words of his mother began to fade in the background as he listened to the sound of the rain and felt the pattering on his head. He’d heard this all before, over and over each day that she called at this time. He began to wonder why he even bothered to answer it. And eventually, like always, Rayne casually hung up the phone in complete disinterest and leaned against the payphone.
“My only responsibility is myself.” he muttered to himself.
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“Ray, you can’t keep living your life like this.” The waitress slammed his drink down on the bar table. Ray lifted his head up slowly and grabbed the handle of the glass.
“I can do whatever I want.” He muttered before, taking a slow sip.
“Ray, can you honestly say this is what you want? To spend the rest of your life at this bar? Then die alone without your family?”
“I don’t need my family. I never needed them before…and I thought I had you…” he looked up at her lazily and drunk. Somehow the waitress had to admit, he was beautiful even with his scruffy face and baggy eyes. There was a happier person in him under that solemn frown he held on his face. Then an inch of sadness crept into her expression as when he was drunk...he adored her, but when he’d return the next night, it was as if they met for the first time.
“…you do have me Rayne, but I don't wanna stay down here forever. I wanna go to the world above. What happened to your ambition?”
Rayne shrugged his shoulders. “It died along with everything else.”
The waitress shook her head. She grabbed his hand and pulled it towards her. “It’s closing hours, but I want you to come in the back with me.”
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The lights were off and everything was pitch black. But Ray knew the room well. It was her room.
“What do you want me back here for? Finally, taking me up on my offer?” He asked in a seductive manner. She flicked the lights on and Ray saw before him a baby grand piano and a guitar. Ray walked over and fiddled with the keys of the piano. He sat on the edge of her bed that served as a makeshift bench.
“Where’d you find this?” He asked in wonder.
“I found the piano disassembled in the great trash pile and the guitar was given to me long ago. But I had the piano assembled by someone. I see you're more interested in the piano. So that was the type of musician you were.” she assumed.
“The piano is the only instrument I can play.”
She walked over and picked up the guitar then seated herself next to Ray.
“So you never learned how to play the guitar? They're so similar.”
“No…my mother got me into the piano. I guess she thought I'd be a master pianist or something. I'm not exactly talented at playing either.”
“Oh…so I didn't nail it before.” She laughed. Rayne never did answer her questions directly.
He shook his head and said “I'm more of a vocalist.”
He started to play a soft melody. The song sounded familiar to her so she began to play with him.
“Won't you say goodbye goodbye to me…this is a goodbye goodbye from me. Ohhh oh...”
The girl looked up from her guitar shocked to hear such an angelic come from usually drunken, usually depressed man. The song sounded familiar. She couldn’t stop to ask him for he was off in his own musical world
“It hasn’t been too long, maybe a night or two, it doesn't take too much to recall the time, that time you passed from my side. I saw the faded light, pass right by your face. And all I have to say is why not me? God why not me? So everyday I wake up in the morning, mourning. All I can say is goodbye goodbye, won't you say good bye gooodbye to me? Ohhh but I guess it's a goodbye goodbye from me…”
Rayne abruptly stopped singing. He had no rhyme nor reason as to why he choose to play his farewell song or why his fingers possessed his soul and brought him to that note, but it happened. There was nothing he could do to take that from his soul.
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Rayne looked up and muttered: “I can’t go on.”
The waitress stood up in defense. “…Ray…you..that was amazing…how did you…you’re voice…it’s nothing like when you speak…its angelic…so much passion…you must…”
“I can’t…I can’t sing anymore.”
“But…that song…and it was so familiar…”
“Don’t worry yourself about it, it’s something from the world above us.”
The waitress cuffed her head with her hands in sorrow and disappointment.
“This is the most amazing and disappointing moment ever. Do you realize that? Why don’t you use your voice.”
Rayne silently shook his head no. How could he possibly explain everything he had been through? How could he tell her what was happening to him now? She’d cry. she’d feel limited.
“Can I strike you a deal?” she began. “I can move this old piano out in the bar and you can play and I’ll pay you to play. You don’t have to sing or anything…just play…please?”
“I don’t think that would work out.” Rayne began to stand up and head for the door. She looked at him as he walked out, searching for something inside him that said he needed to play. Rayne stopped at the door for a moment. He knew she needed the money more than he needed his pride, more than he wanted his life.
“I’ll think about it.” “Really?!” she jumped up in excitement. “Thank you! I’ll set everything up!” He smiled.
“Don’t get so excited. I said I’ll think about it. Remember…I have to get through tonight.” She held a puzzled look on her face then turned to check the torn calendar that hung on her thick wall paper.
“Shit! Its tonight…what day is it? Maybe you should stay here we have ventila—” She turned her head back to Rayne to see that it was just empty space and dust.
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Under the light of the full moon Rayne stood on top of a giant heap of rubble and looked at where the toxic fumes would come from and where it would not spread. He heard the screams of people from the east and saw the purple toxic fumes that followed. He never saw that color before…there was no telling what kind of fumes they were. This time he feared they were actually toxic. He had a fighting chance but not nearly good enough. He couldn’t risk being stuck in the fumes again. He looked to his left where his building stood only a few feet away. His apartment window was right there. He slid down the heap a little bit and took a grand leap to catch on to the apartment window. He struggled to lift himself through the window and rolled in. He rushed down to the basement of the apartment, he closed the ventilation systems and the possibility for air to run through them. In the dark corner, he sat and waited.
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It might have been days.
Weeks may have gone by.
But Rayne waited in that corner.
He watched the red light above the steps to leave the basement.
Waiting. Watching it to turn green.
“It must have been bad,” he thought. He remembered the screams of people far off in the distance as the toxic cloud covered them. The above world always sent down some form of hazardous waste from its hospitals, manufacturing, and pure waste. Every month something would come. He remembered when he first came down to the world below. He didn’t know anything about surviving and he came on the eve of a massive toxic movement.
That first time, destroyed his insides and crippled his lungs. He only survived because he made it to his sanctuary. He remembered stumbling down the apartment stairs, trying to find help, anybody who would help him. He saw the signs. He saw the arrows. The little basement below the apartment. A fallout room.
The light above the staircase turned to yellow.
It must’ve been bad.
The death count was high.
Rayne stood from his corner and put on the only form of protection he had, a face mask.
He couldn’t wait any longer.
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He could hardly say that he had a heart of gold.
What he did to protect himself was exactly that,
His way to protect himself and no one else needed to know about his sanctuary
There was nothing he could do for anyone else.
The air had a tint of purple mist and the streets were quiet and dull. He saw one body struggling to get up. It was a man. Rayne went over to him and grabbed his arm to put around his shoulder.
“Whoa there buddy...you need help. What happened to your--” Rayne stopped mid sentence. When he knelt down to help the man their eyes met and their faces were close. The man’s eyes were black and dead. His face loose and drooping from it’s skeleton. His skin in fact was loose and practically melting like heated clay. The man’s mouth was wide open and his face held an expression of shock. He moaned and groaned in agonizing tones as if his mind was lame.
Taken aback, Rayne dropped him to the ground. Looking at his own hands, he saw the skin had left a sticky residue or maybe remnants from the skin itself.
“Disgusting...” Rayne whispered to himself. He walked away, trying to hold back the nauseating feeling in his stomach. But he saw that further ahead was no better. There were piles upon piles of bodies...and many more piled near the bar. Rayne smelled smoke permeating in the air. It was coming from the bar.
Rayne tried to move the bodies out of the way. They were slippery and at sometimes his hand would go through a body and when he stepped, it was like he was slowly sinking into quicksand that had claimed many lives, because he still felt the bones cracking underneath.
“Someone must have moved these bodies to the bar...there are too many piled. It’s almost purposefully blocking the door.” he thought. But he reached the door and found that there were more bodies inside than out. He heard soft sobbing coming from the back where the waitress lived. Ray cautiously cracked the door and peeked inside. He saw the waitress on the floor in the fetal position covering her ears and sobbing quietly. She was muttering something.
“Yo...” Ray called to her. “Hey!”
“How...could they...how could they do this...monsters...those monsters...” she muttered.
Rayne carefully walked over to her and observed the black ash surrounding her. There were embers still flying in the air. He knelt down next to her and shook her a bit.
“Hey, what happened? Why are there bodies piled outside this place? Can you answer me?”
She looked up in hearing the voice of an angel. A tear ran gently down her face as she saw the light. She quickly took her arms and embraced him tightly.
“Rayne!” she gasped. “Please help me!”
Rayne pushed her off in alarm. “Do I know you?”
She stared at him blankly, she clasped her hands to her heart and turned her head down swaying it slightly from side to side. She made small mutters and wailing noises. She muttered what words she could: “It’s...hopeless...”
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