High White Sound by Hannah Herchenbach

  Twenty-Two. The Friends

  Less than two hours of sleep later I stood head hanging under the shower while the last blast of hot water shocked consciousness back into my bones. Woke blinking and tired and turning from the sun with encrusted eyes spilling out clumps of god-knows-what.

  All of a sudden it was graduation. You think this day will never come. But once you’re there, you’re ready. You’re already past it in your head. I found my place in the line, fifteen minutes after marching time, and sort of just stood there for a while staring off at nothing. And thank God it's just a bit cloudy, it’s not that sunshine day where God smiles down on your beaming bouncing souls exiting the gates and re-entering reality, but no matter, we’re more an agnostic crowd anyways. We’re just glad there’s no rain.

  Not a moment after ten, the great wide clouds opened up. Sheets of cold rain flashed down from the heavens. And our dizzy little patterns commenced around droplets thick as pebbles, where one drop splotches across your arm, shirt, down the side of your face. Not the kind to run in between, or skirt around. Just wet.

  We trudged on, inching towards the plastic chairs lumped in the middle of the lawns, a marching line of proud little drenched rats. The guards laughed and threw us bags normally used for trash.

  The rain appears to let up for a moment, but then it started thundering. Sheets and sheets of cold rain splattered off the hundreds of colored umbrellas popping up round like exploding balloons. All the kids sit huddling and shivering against friends beneath umbrellas, jostling for warmth and losing all the empty space between each other shivering in a solid blue mass, as rain streaks faces like long slow tears. And under that patchwork canopy of umbrellas we were all the same, slouching down to stay warm. Can't see the stage, or the crowd. Can hear nothing other than the rain. And all we can see is each other, hopelessly cold, stuck, and laughing.

  And it takes a long time for a thousand pairs of feet to saunter across a stage. Some students streak down the cobblestones. Many are jumping ship. While I like the idea of getting drunk instead of sitting through this mess, there's still some damn sentimental thing in me that wants to stay, staring down at the ground, huddled with my friends in the rain. Waiting only for the moment to walk across the stage, saying over and over again, ‘God I just want to walk, I just want that stage…’ And suddenly I don’t mind the rain. That pressing moment filled with unknown wells of desire was more searing and sweet than anything that could have been conjured out of a cloudless sky and beaming day of sun.