Empyrean Iris Story Collection

Two Drops of Rain

A droplet of rain clung to the glass of the window reflecting an inverted view of the sullen grey sky. It hung suspended there for a few seconds, capturing a moment in its surface, before rupturing and rolling downward disrupting other droplets and causing them to bleed downwards. The rain was heavy enough that the grassy compound outside was covered by a layer of grey. Water droplets lept from the concrete creating a silver haze about the ground, and anything past the distant shadow of buildings on the other side of the square was nothing more than a silhouette perhaps a lamp post, or a lone car hunched in the rain.

He raised his hand to the glass, the warmth of his fingers casting a delicate glaze of fog over the transparent surface before his fingers even made contact.

"Adam."

He tilted his head back watching as a pair of droplets began to roll down the outside of the glass. He watched them intently wondering which one of them would win. At first it seemed like the droplet on the left would, but ultimately it's speed caused it to lose too much weight, and it got stuck halfway to the ground.

"Adam."

He turned away from the window distracted from his daydreams and brought back to current reality; A white cinder block room, with industrial grey carpet and modern grey furniture accented in blue. Large tropical prints hung on one side of the room fake and grey in the cold light of early spring. A large desk sat opposite cheep steel and wood crouched under an equally cheap set of metal shelving units supporting long lines of fake, leather-bound volumes letters printed in minute gold or silver script up their spines.

The entire right wall was made up of floor to ceiling glass windows allowing in the thin dreary light cast through the clouds above. On the desk a small glass orb contained a self sustaining biome including a colorful pink sea plant and a single shrimp-like creature. Next to that was a family photograph lovingly dusted of grime, but somehow equally lifeless as the tropical prints on the wall.

A large green plant sat next to him.

It was real, he had already checked.

"Adam?

"Hmm."

"I was asking if you had been feeling better since our last session?" The woman who sat in front of him was older, with short steel-grey hair, and a delicate pink white scar running over one of her eyes across valleys of sagging skin. Despite that, she was quite fit for her age, and sat with a hard straight-back demeanor that belied her surprisingly gentle manner.

"I...." He paused looking out the window again trying to track single raindrops as they pelted towards the ground and failing. He sighed, "Not really, no."

"Do you think you can try and tell me what's bothering you?" He could hear the rain pounding against the bushes outside the window. It was a distant sound like static or the roaring of a crowd.

"I wish I could." The chair below him creaked slightly. It wasn't exactly comfortable;industrial and hard, but he didn't mind that so much. He wasn't here to be comfortable; he had come here to get help.

"You mentioned before that you were having trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, and that was affecting your work. Is it still?"

He shifted in his seat, and below him, Waffles, his dog, rolled onto her other side service vest creaking slightly as she sighed, "No ... the sleeping isn't much better, and I think I've made it pretty clear that my concentration is still shot." He tried pointedly to look away from the window.

The rain picked up a little, "And what exactly is it that you think about during those times." She wondered

He thought for a minute, "Nothing mostly. Sort of just on autopilot you know.... It's easier there, like I don't have to think so much."