A Dark and Stormy Evening

The shoebox was old, made of course brown fibers. Dark images, resembling postcards, were interspersed on it, although the boy who used it was fairly sure the shoes didn't understand their own journeys.

He sat on top of it one night, when the sky poured down rain. It was ouside but under an overpass, so he heard the smooth pattering but remained dry.

He opened the soft book, thumbing through the pages. Dubliners. The descriptions were amazing to the boy. "She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue."

It was easy for him to close his eyes and listen to the soft rain, taking in a smell of the droplets which hit the ground softly only a few paces from him, coupled with the smell of the old book.

He was not in America; he was in Dublin. The characters lived right next door; if he so wished, he could simply have walked across the cobblestone street and struck up a conversation with one of them.

But it seemed easier to sit here and enjoy the rain. So he lifted his left foot onto his right knee and, holding the book apart with one hand, continued reading.