The Rain’s Arithmetic

The dream started as a quiet arithmetic of rain against concrete. I was walking through the emptied streets of a town whose name I never learned, a place of boarded storefronts and dog-eared posters peeling from brick. The sky was the color of a bruise, and the rain fell in sheets that seemed to count each step I took. I remember thinking, ‘This is a town that gave up on being found.’ I explored the hollow buildings, their insides smelling of wet dust and rot, until I found myself on a long, empty sidewalk that ran beside a canal of black water.

That is when I saw them: two figures, unmistakable even in the low light. A man curled on his side, like a comma, and a woman kneeling, her head pressed against his ribcage, listening. I had not thought of that old television show in years, but there they were, as if my memory had coughed them up. The woman lifted her head and looked at me with a calm that made the air colder. She did not speak. I felt a pull, a shift, and suddenly the man was gone, and I was the one on the ground. The rain pounded on my back, and the woman’s head rested on my chest, her ear against my sternum, listening for a beat that I could not feel.

She whispered, so softly, ‘You are the denominator.’ And then the world folded like a wet paper crane. I was no longer in that town. I was in a desert, the rain gone, replaced by a dry heat that cracked my lips. A single, rusted windmill stood against a pink sky, its blades turning with a groan that matched the thud of my heart. I knew, without knowing how, that I had to climb it. The rungs were slick with something that smelled like copper. As I climbed, I saw below me a field of hundreds of figures, all lying in the same fetal position, all with a different woman or man or child kneeling, heads pressed to their chests. They were all listening. I was the only one climbing.

At the top, I found a door that opened into a small room, empty except for a table and a single photograph. The photograph was of me, taken from behind, standing on that same sidewalk, but the rain was frozen mid-fall. In the photo, I was not looking at the two figures. I was looking at a third figure, a tall thing draped in wet cloth, its face a smudge, one long finger extended, touching the nape of the woman’s neck. I turned to run, but the door was gone. The windmill was now just a pillar of rust, and the sky was a deep, swallowing gray. The rain returned, not as a fall, but as a rising tide of gray water from below. The figures in the field began to lift their heads, and all at once, they turned to face me.

I woke with a gasp, my sheets soaked in sweat but no odor of rain. The clock beside my bed read 3:00 a.m. I told myself it was just a dream, but as I lay there, my chest began to ache, a phantom pressure like a head resting against my sternum. I reached for my phone to check the date, and there, on the screen, was a notification: A message from an unknown sender. It read simply, ‘You are the denominator.’ I deleted it, but the ache remained. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, I saw the woman’s face again, her ear pressed to my chest, listening. And then I heard it: a heartbeat, but not mine. It was slower, steadier, and growing louder, as if something inside me had just started to wake. I have not slept since. I have not slept since.