Caught

I had gone grocery shopping (an errand I absolutely luuurrrvvveee!) this evening and while I was having all the fun piling stuff in my cart, it started to rain. Unfazed, thinking it must be a drizzle cause it certainly didn't look like it would rain when I'd walked to the market, I hopity-hopped between the aisles.

After paying for the purchases and requesting the shop-boys to get the goods delivered to my apartment, I walked out the corridor completely unprepared for the downpour. JFC! It was raining bathtubs! Now I'm not the sort at all who likes or lets just say "tolerates" getting wet in the rain. The whole prospect of wet clingy clothes, dripping hair, squelching feet is NOT my idea of fun. Ick.

Stranded I decided to wait it out with few other shoppers who too were caught unprepared for this downpour. It was ok while there were these 2 other ladies with me, the local asswipes kept a suitable distance. Pretty soon, ones husband come to pick her up and the other flagged down a cyclerick. Yippee for me. Like bees to honey (and I'm NOT flattering myself here) the doucebags gleefully gravitated to where I stood, trying hard to blend in with the poster on the wall depicting some cartoon character happily munching on corn-flakes. Not successful.

Fine. I get it. In their retarded gnat-sized brains the whole "girl stranded in the rain" evokes orgasmic visual malfunctions. WooHoo for you. BooHoo for me. Stinking sweating men, drenched in their pathetic excuse of "masculinity" and the rain, swearing, smoking and excitedly scratching their balls as they guffawed, leered and made really gag-worthy comments, I fantasized about un-taping one of the electrical wires hanging near the signboard and just oh so casually letting it fall near where they stood in inch deep water. Ohh the absolute joy of watching them dance the happy gay dance of electrocution. *sigh* Fried hair and popping eyeballs... if wishes were horses!

After about an hour (it was 9pm by then) of fantasizing and working on that thick skin I have been trying to build for 2 years now, I decided to risk the ickyness and brave the rain. I set off, hunched and walking as fast as my lil legs could carry me, ignoring the color and questionable properties of the waters flooding the the streets. I turn right for my street and it's pitch black with just the faint glow from windows of houses, barely letting me see cause it was raining so hard. I trudge on, unknowing that which lay before me was a veritable "talaab" reaching up to my knees!!! I was suddenly caught in this terrifying pool of gushing water, the rain beating down on my head, can't see for shit... one of my favorite nightmares come true.

Panic, doesn't even begin to describe what exploded in my heart, raced through my veins, hitching my lungs shut and rendered my limbs numb. I haven't had the drowning nightmares in years. And here I was living it. Again. I swear I saw spots dancing in front of eyes, just how it used to when I'd have an panic induced asthma attack. No. That's NOT where we are going now are we trooper? Uh-Huh. I'm thankful for my sheer grit that I didn't completely lose my head and talked my myself into moving my legs, one at a time, telling myself that it's real not a dream, there's nothing in the water making it's way towards me, the lil bumps and nudges I feel against my legs are just twigs and trash, I can breathe, one puff in and one puff out, I have full control and I can walk out of this. Inching forward I used the cars parked on the sides to feel my way out to the bend and into another street. The water level was up to my shins here and manageable. There were no cars parked here, so stumbled around a bit and came to the other bend. The water was only ankle-deep, and I could see my gate further ahead, relief flooding through me. I literally ran home, feeling a lil stupid at my panic attack and how childishly I lost control of my faculties, yet quivering happily to be where there was light and the comfort of my home.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me. Years back I was caught in another downpour, with no ride home and decided to head out, foolishly believing that I possessed the gumption to tackle deserted roads and pouring rain on me own. Not. I must have fallen close to 3-5 times that night, stumbling around in the flooded streets, tripping into pot-holes, breath wheezing through constricted capillaries, desperately convincing myself that the water I was floundering in wasn't teeming with creepy-crawlies. I manage to make my way to a local market, stranded in front of a sole dingy pan-wala at 10:00pm, drenched and scared shitless cause all I encountered there too were just these asswipes, making me realize how ineffective my gender really is. I had made so many calls that night, requesting from friends to family to come pick me up, getting all sorts of excuses why they can't, and finally I got through to my cuz who actually could. While I waited for her to get done with work and come get me, I stood outside a fast-food joint, weeping my heart out, sucking on my inhaler, hoping I don't pass out. She finally arrives, shocked to see the state I'm in, blubbering like a hysterical baby, so happy to see a familiar face. Dropping me home, my Mom is even more shocked cause I was running 104 fever by then, a lil... ok a lot outta my mind, blabbing stuff that made no sense to her, clinging to her and crying like the world was ending.

Hmmmm. How did this get so long?

I don't hate the rain. As long as I'm indoors and/or with company. I actually love stormy weather, love lightning and thunder claps, static making my hair dance. Love the emotions cloudy weather evokes in my heart, tempting me to take flying leaps off windows and balconies. But the actual presence of water and darkness are too close to a dream I have had since I was child, that I have worked hard to beat it to the back of oblivion, never to rear it's ugly head again.