Splashes

It rained all Friday morning. It was not a heavy downpour but a persistent and continuous rain that had not eased since the previous afternoon. Whenever it seemed like it was just about to stop it would start pouring down again. This week has been nothing but rain as if our rainy season (the plum rains) visits us two months early. The sky remained constantly dark as if it was covered with a lid and it seemed as if the whole world was drenched. Even after we stepped inside the feeling was heavy as if we had been hung up to dry in some damp place.
I put on my boots and my waterproof and my hat and took my shopping bag and I was ready to venture out in that downpour to do my shopping when the phone rang. It was a long laborious lazy ring somehow with tones just lethargically crossing the room. I always feel that I know when Hitomi rings because the phone seems to announce it in a joyously and eager fashion and the ring seems somehow musical and lively but this was a slow, rainy day kind of ring. I kicked off my boots and ran inside to answer it.
The very nice lady at the other end of the connection sounded bright and happy as if she were lying on an Okinawan beach enjoying an almost tropical sunshine. It seemed that those warm sunny rays came down the line to me as she asked if I would be able to attend an interview for a position with their company next week. It appears that at least one of my many applications has become a plum ready for ripening.

Sunny version.

The old antique clock on the shelf would tick loudly as I sat and watched it. The hands would hardly move at all under my gaze but at the apex of each pendulum swing, a loud and satisfying tick would resonate throughout the room. The pendulum hidden inside the clock would then swing towards the other side and upon reaching the opposite peak, an equally loud but seemingly deeper 'tock' would resound throughout. This was my Father's very old ornate clock and I was completely fascinated by it. If I had come home from school and I was sat at the desk doing my schoolwork, I do not recall the clock saying anything at all. It may have been silent as a token of respect while I worked or it may have been lost in a voiceless void or it may have been absorbed by the wall because it went by utterly unnoticed. If the family gathered and talked again it would sit quietly on the shelf silently displaying the passage of time without the slightest interruption. Only, it seemed, when I was alone and the room was quiet and I remembered to look at it would the clock talk to me once more with his distinct and discernible rhythm. It was a beautiful clock not only in the way it had been crafted but also in the way it seemed to know when to keep relatively silent. That clock went to Otaru when my Mother went to live there.
I sat and watched the clock. I was dreaming I know and slowly the living area where I sat watching the clock faded and became dark. The bedroom where I was sleeping and dreaming was in an almost complete darkness. A little light shone in from behind the curtains where the city lights would not allow a total shadow, it removed that complete darkness. My bedside clock with the LED display proclaiming the time to be '04:12', gave a little light to the room and as I lay there in the 'almost' darkness I wondered if I could sleep for two more hours and then it suddenly struck me that in the far distance, in the quiet of the room I could still hear the clock of my dreams and it was gently ticking somewhere off in the distance.
I was thrilled and yet somehow I was also anxious because I knew that clock to be eight hundred and thirty kilometers to the north of me, in Otaru at my Father's home. There is no clock in my home that ticks like it had done.
Hitomi was sleeping soundly, her gentle breathing just one more soft song of the night.
I had to get up and know where that ticking was coming from. Perhaps it was this very sound that had inspired my dream.
I slowly got out of bed so I wouldn't disturb her and took my robe and put it about me and I opened the bedroom door. I stood and I listened. The ticking was coming from the bathroom rather than the lounge which at such a time in the morning seemed quite strange.
I opened the bathroom door and at once the ticking was louder. I put on the light and looked around and there in the hand basin I saw the source of the sound. Hitomi, the last to use the room, had left the tap dripping and her toothbrush had fallen into the sink. The drip, drip, drip from the tap on her toothbrush didn't quite sound like a ticking clock when I stood this close but across the silence of a sleeping home and the rhythm caressing the ears of sleeping heads, it could indeed be the beat of a dream.
These then were the simple ingredients that created my dream I reasoned to myself.
I turned off the tap and returned her brush to the holder and returned to bed. The next clock to disturb me was our morning alarm.

The cat sat quietly in the attic space. The sounds of scratching and soft movements had attracted her up here. She was patient as indeed all cats are, sitting quietly and very still in one dark corner but her senses reached out. Her sensitive eyes were watching for any movement, her ears listening for any sound and her nose breathing in softly but deeply and quietly waiting for that tell-tale dank rodent smell.
The sun moved across the sky but its passage went unnoticed in the semi darkness of the attic. Perhaps cats don't measure time like people do. They perhaps measure it from one feed to another. However long into one of the spaces between feeds we are not sure but I do know that her patience was rewarded.
One little movement alerted her and she spied the black rat on the far side of the attic and slowly, very slowly and very stealthily she moved towards it. The rat was furtive and had his eyes everywhere but when his gaze was away from her she'd edge a little closer. She had perhaps covered more than half the distance between them when the rat suddenly and alarmingly became aware that it was no longer along in the attic space. He stood up on his hind legs and scanned the room and his heartbeat suddenly began to race because there in the near distance and slowly creeping towards him was the most ferocious looking cat he'd ever seen in his life. He bolted and made a run for cover but the cat was bigger, faster and could close the gap between them with lightning speed.
It was over all too quickly. The rat was cornered in the attic corner with no way out. He turned with resignation to see the cat sitting contentedly in front of him licking clean a paw. The smug superior expression upon her face was almost a declaration of the fact that she knew she had won.
"Please Miss Cat show me pity, I have two hungry babies at home who rely on me."
The cat paused in licking clean its paw and regarded the pleading rat and then offered him a gentle and reassuring smile.
"Mr Rat I would like to tell you that I am probably like no cat you have ever seen before. I take great pride in informing you that I am a vegetarian."
"Oh Miss Cat, I am indeed a fortunate rat meeting one such as you." The rat said relaxing visibly.
In the next instant the cat pounced on the rat and sank her fangs into the soft tissues of his neck.
"Miss Cat," choked the rat, "I thought you were vegetarian?"
"Indeed I am, I am far too honorable to tell you a lie," said Miss Cat carrying off her prize, "I am not a stupid cat, you are a nice fat juicy rat and that is the truth too so I intend to take you and trade you for a nice lettuce!"
The rat's eyes misted over and closed for the last time as the cat with the rat in her mouth jumped down from the attic space onto the upper stairway.

Who amongst you wants to offer a moral?