Isn't it amazing... How bright the memories of your childhood can seem? Flashes of your past, when you were too little to know real pain, each one gilded in a golden halo, like the sun always shone on you when you were little, as if there was no such thing as rain. The memories are faded yes, perhaps the golden glow you see isn't actually the sun, just the tarnished, worn sheen of an old photograph. Even though they can be blurred, insignificant moments, you hold onto these memories. You remember the swing of the purple bucket, or the little toys you found in between the stalks of flowers, you can still remember the feeling of the gravel underneath your shoes, and how the road led straight home to the small, bright house atop the hill. You remember the house most of all, though you try not to reminisce on the details, you can't ignore that the feeling of the house still sits in your bones, because it didn't just feel like a house; it felt like a home.

   In these memories, these memories of when you were so very young, you can still feel the peace that never seemed to cease. You can still see the river you'd sit by when you were infuriated, but such anger never seemed to last; because there was peace. And you can still see the sunlight, illuminating everything. The trees outlined by a golden halo, the river shimming with an almost blinding light as it tumbled past, and the way the light seemed to reflect back to you from my own eyes. I know you remember, it glinting off my blonde hair, how even after the fight my scowl seemed to lighten with the warm sun on our backs.

   I remember the sun.

   I know you remember it too. The heat of it, pressing into our backs as we ran around together, scheming up adventures together and creating worlds we pulled right out of story books. The sun always seemed to follow us, warm us.

   So tell me, why are we sitting in the rain?

   I remember our tree. We never called it our tree, we never called it anything. At the time, that tree hadn't meant anything to us but a shady spot to sit. It was like our base, our meeting spot. If we wanted to play a game, we played at the tree. You have the memories, of us sitting at the gnarled roots, don't you? Of the little hollow at the base of the tree we'd always hide little trinkets in. We'd splay the books out underneath that tree, relaxing in the shade, and then play out the same stories we had just read about. We were anything we wanted to be, warriors, brave heroes, rangers on the search for evil villains.

   You loved playing those games. When our minds were so light, unburdened by reality, we could be anything we wanted to be. We'd play for hours, smiling and teasing when someone else tried to join in; they could never truly understand the games, never truly see the world we did. We'd lose track of time, until finally even the sun slipped away, and we'd begin to see the large beacon light flashing from the balcony. With weary smiles we'd climb up the hill to our home, and collapse into bed, without a fear in our head that it could all collapse.

   The memories of our childhood are so light. Tainted by only a few dark spots, we never knew what real pain and loss was. Maybe we still don't, but we've known pain, and we've known loss, and we've known hell.

   Now, our memories aren't so bright.

   Instead of standing in the sun, we sit in the rain.

   Brother. 

.   .   .

   I remember when it all started to downpour, and the first few droplets had landed on the old, faded photograph of our childhood.

   Before we knew it, it was flooding.

   We had no control. We were children, there was no say for us. We didn't fully understand ether, how could we? All we had known was sunlight, so when the first streams of water had begun to swirl we just stared in wonder, confused as to why the clouds overhead made us cold.

   We had felt it before it came. Dirty, murky water seeping into the walls of our lives. First trickles, we were being warned. We knew that a flood was coming, but we ignored; not because we wished not to acknowledge what was happening, but because we could not fully understand what was happening. We just let the adults handle it, we just reached for their hands in trust...

   But then, their hands were limp. Her hands, were limp.

   We both lost something that day. A part of us, the part that relished the warmth of the sun, shattered. Our childhood had fractured because now we knew that no longer would the sun always shine.

   The trickles down the walls had turned into rivulets, which grew to gushing streams. The water was pushing in on our home, our lives, this flood. We could feel ourselves drowning, floundering in the dirty water we had known would come. Now we were beginning to understand what was truly happening to us. This knowledge was a burden, forcing us to both give something in return for freedom from the crushing waves.

   We had stayed afloat though, spitting out the vile tasting water because we knew it wasn't time to give in yet. We had crawled out of the water and sat by its edge, watching the swirling, sucking darkness of the depths as it washed away the last of our childhood innocence. We waited until the water had gone down, receded away, and tried to force our way back into our home. We couldn't leave home, it was all we knew.

   But from the flood mold had grown. With her death, the pain in the walls had blossomed, thickening the air. It was too hard for us to breathe, too dangerous to keep inhaling the mold that had grown in our hearts.

   You had been the one to say the dreaded words.

   "I can't stay here."

   I had felt the tears immediately, the choking sensation in my throat and a cold stone in my stomach. I had turned to you, seen the bitter way you looked down on our home. The walls were stained, the furniture ruined. Everything was ruined. It was a look I had never seen on your face before, the first time I saw, instead of sun, storm clouds gathering in your eyes.

   I knew it would rain.

   I wanted to beg with you, plead with you to stay. It was our home, how could we leave our home? So what if everything was ruined, and empty? I was scared it was going to only get emptier if you left.

   "Stay." I had whispered.

   But you had shook your head, tears falling. And I realized then it hadn't been raindrops on our photograph after all, it had been tears. The pain, the mold, was choking us, choking you. You couldn't stand seeing our home so ruined, uninhabitable.

   When I looked at you, in that moment, I saw something lost. A person lost; not our mother, but you. A part of you, lost to the churning waves of the flood. It was your childhood, lost. And as it went, so mine did too. The life we had was gone, and we were still so young yet to fully understand it.

   I saw what had been lost, these parts of us, in exchange for only more agony, and knew I had to get it back. I had to get you back to the person you were.

   I had dropped to my knees onto the soggy grass, head lowered. I was scared, scared that I wouldn't be able to return what was lost to you.

   I had realized, it wasn't your home lost, it was a part of your heart. Just like the part of mine.

   My brother.

.   .   .

   I remember, when we were still so little, you loved the rain. Back when you were small, you'd play in it for hours, we both would. We could feel each little drop hitting our skin, and we would watch them deconstructing into much smaller drops that bounced off us, only to drip to the ground and reconstruct into the puddles. As little kids we'd lift our faces to the gray sky, letting each drop patter against our cheeks, dripping off our chins. We'd laugh, heads thrown back, drenched hair sticking to our face and neck. In these moments, each cool drop that hit our face was a savored touch, and as we drank in the air, sweetened with the scent of rain heavy in the country, we would never feel more alive. It was like our hearts were soaring as we closed our eyes. Such content sighs left our chests, matching each other's. We didn't feel the cold, or the way our clothes were drenched and stuck to our bodies. We just felt the wonderful sensation of rain, the way it seemed to wash both our bodies and our souls. And we both knew that when the chill finally would seep into our bones, and the breeze seemed to bite just a little harder then before, that there was a bright, warm house waiting for us. A roaring fire, a mound of blankets, and of course mother's arms.

   Mom...

   I remember the way she would look out the window at the pouring rain, how the drops hitting the glass would create rippling patterns on her soft face. Her eyes would get lost ever so briefly, her expression turning into something we had been too young to understand or even acknowledge. We'd look at her, at first concerned by the look of forlorn on her face, then switch our gazes to the window, see the downpour, and forget any worry we could have had. Standing side by side, we'd turn to each other with looks of excitement, eyes brimming with their own child-like glow. Mom's gaze would snap to us suddenly, as if she hadn't noticed we were there, and then a smile would grace her face, as if to tell us it was all ok. But had we even been paying attention? No, because we were already racing past her feet in an attempt to beat the other to the door. We'd yank open the door, get hit immediately with the wall of cool, heavy air that smelled so sweetly of rain, and leave mom in the dim light of the kitchen as we bolted out into to the storm.

   Our mother was so beautiful wasn't she? She was as transfixing as the rain, and just like it too. The rain, how it seemed to wash away everything bad, refresh the soul, and cleanse it of its pain. Yet, there is always something sorrowful about rain. As good as it feels, as enlivening as it can be, there is no denying that there is a certain, subtle, and silent kind of sadness in it. We never saw this in mom did we? We were too young to see any kind of pain. There was a lot of things we were blind to, right little brother?

   I was thinking about how much we had both once truly loved the rain, last night. Before the flood that dragged everything away, the rain was a symbol of purity and peace. The sound of it hitting the ground was always so relaxing, feeling each drop patter into our muscles was refreshing. But after the flood... After watching every once pure raindrop collide with earth and add onto the monster of a river that sloshed through our home, I just couldn't take the rain alone anymore. Once what was so clean and refreshing, what I had always so playfully caught on my tongue, and wiped out of my eyes with laughter, now just turned into a murky, muddy mass of destruction that left everything broken in its path.

   No, I certainly don't enjoy the rain as I had once done. But you... Do you even feel the rain? For so long now you've gone without feeling what pains you, how can you even remember how it felt? The raindrops rolling down our bodies, soaking clothes clinging to our small frames. Can you remember how it felt when a chilly gust of wind would whip past us? How good it felt, how alive we were as we splayed our arms out, almost as if we were trying to catch the feeling of the wind and hold it against us forever. Do you remember? If you do, hold onto it! If you can remember what it felt like to stand out under the downpour, to feel it washing all the bad things off of you, hold onto that feeling, don't let it go! Promise me! Promise me you won't forget!

   Brother... Don't forget. It's my fault if you forget. It's all my fault.

   My little brother, I was suppose to protect you... But I how could I have saved you from the flood?

   We were like the rain. High in the sky we hung, suspended together in a hazy cloud of our own foolish beliefs. From up there we could see the word below us, a world that seemed to be ours for the taking. We thought we were safe from wordly troubles, kept so high by both our childish ignorance and child-like optimism. But we were rain, and all rain has to fall.

   We hit the ground hard. Like each other raindrop, we made impact and broke into a million different, tiny pieces of ourselves. We scattered across the wet grass, and luckily most of the parts of me that had been forced away rolled back across the ground to my side. I picked myself up and put myself together, leaving just one little drop to soak into the ground, one tiny part that made me incomplete.

   But you hadn't been able to do the same. You had hit too hard, the rain that had made you up flying too far away to be reached. I screamed for you, scrambling among the earth, but I couldn't bring those parts of you back, I couldn't put you back together. I kept what I could of you, the traces of my once so happy little brother, and clung onto the memories.

   We were the flood. We were the drops that started the flood, the torrential downpour that ruined it all.

   Tell me, little brother, do you still like the rain?