You Shouldn't Stand In The Rain

         

               “What?” I had heard him just fine when I pretended not to, but sometimes we’re just so surprised by what people say that we automatically ask for confirmation. That’s about what happened, and he smiled briefly as that half burned cigarette tangled from his lips when he charmingly spoke again.

               “I said that you shouldn’t stand in the rain. It’ll get you sick in no time. Especially on such a night as this.”

               He was the most mysterious figure. As he leaned himself against the wall where the bus stop was located, he would protect from the cold yet gentle rain, subject of our unusual conversation. His whole figure called out to me, and perhaps that was the real reason I had not gone to my flat as I returned from the video store. Initially, I had noticed him dwelling and smoking discretely in the shadowy corner of that very same bus stop where I was now standing nearby. I remember I said to myself he might be a stalker, and thus pose some danger if he was to realize I lived just around the corner… So it was better, safer, and smarter to pretend I was heading for the bus stop, although that also meant getting closer to him and to all of that foul, seducing smoke.

               “Cold? Dark? Wet…?” I said to him as I moved under the bus stop and consequently under its top, which then kept me safe from the pouring rain. “What else shouldn’t I do on a night such as this?”

               His cigarette had finally been turned to ashes and his last breath of toxicity released into the damp air. His penetrating look ran across the whole of me, and he smiled gently, but also grimly as he advised me once more.   

               “On a night such as this… You shouldn’t watch that movie alone.”