Poor Old Dmitri

“Pitter Patter…”

Dmitri cursed under his breath for the first time the entire day, long after the sun had set, after the city had plunged into eternal dark gloom and the overcast sky had finally given in to everyone’s expectations.

‘What kind of a ridiculous phrase is pitter-patter?’ he thought.
How could anything this morose and depressing be associated with something that sounds quaint, and pleasant!

Dmitri peered past the blinds and shooed away the birds taking shelter on his ledge.
‘MY Ledge!’ said Dmitri, just for emphasis, to noone in particular.

There was no pitter or patter about the rain tonight.
Just a conglomerate of loud noises, each trying to out-muffle the other. Be it the metallic clink of the rain on tin cans, or the thud of fat drops on concrete, nothing could be heard distinctly.
It was a competitive orchestra of chaos, ridiculing the entity it had set out to create – Music…

Dmitri cursed again, a little louder this time, as he looked wistfully at the roses below. He had taken so much care to grow them, and they were being hammered down to submission by the relentless fat drops of rain.
They’d be dead by morning… He knew it. He would have, on any other day raced down like any protective father would have, but he had already undressed for bed tonight.

He moved away from the window and back into the musty one room apartment.
He breathed in familiar sounds. Like the creak of the floor-board, the rhythmic sound of the leaky tap on a rusty pail, Frank Sinatra’s melancholic voice, and the occasional thunder that dared steal past the environment he’d gotten used to – which was his to cherish.

Dmitri cursed a third time, just for the sheer heck of it, only this time he was loud enough to wake up Lord Barkus, Ms. Gretchen’s 10 year old Retriever.
Dmitri was both glad and angry at himself for that. He was happy to hear the familiar sound of life, but he didn’t really want to get in Ms. Gretchen’s bad books, not with her being the best chef in the world.

Dmitri sat pondering for a long while. He really wasn’t sure if he wanted to write his diary tonight. He hadn’t been around much, and there was nothing that had caught his attention. As his gnarled nails scratched away the few remnants of thin grey hair on his head, he figured he’d save the pages for something really grand. Although there wasn’t much going on in his life, he was positive he’d witness something worthy of mention. Who knows? Tomorrow might turn out luckier.

‘Oh! Who am I kidding!’, he thought aloud and he slowly hoisted himself out of his wheelchair and onto his bed.

The bed shook and the coils creaked as he flailed around trying to find a comfortable spot. As he lay there, haunted by the still sounds of dead things making their presence felt around the room, he couldn’t stop thinking of his roses. He had saved them for something special although he didn’t quite know what it was yet.

Still, he felt that something had changed around him. He drew up the window by his bed and peered into the still darkness, faintly lit by the glow of a city fuelled by crack-whores, late night cab drivers and a flowing stream of alcohol.

The rain was no more. Dmitri felt tomorrow arriving even before he knew it.
And it was going to be a great day!
Dmitri finally fell asleep with a smile on his lips.

Ms. Gretchen plucked every one of the 23 dead roses the next morning with a solemn face.
Lord Barkus was the only other, to say goodbye…

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