It was a dreary, rainy day. The young boy sat upon the burgundy thread-worn carpet, captivated by the rivulets of water trickling down the glass door pane as they distorted the view of the overgrown garden outside. If there had been anyone observing, some would have said the boy was bored. But he had learnt to find amusement in the simple things. After all, there was nothing else to do around here. The storm had been relentless and he had been stuck indoors for days, with no other soul for good company.

His parents were…somewhere. He didn’t really take care to notice. After all, what difference did it really make to him? They were part of a broken system that seemed to encourage marriage at the cost of happiness. The cacophony of their arguments had become nothing but background noise that had hardened his heart over time. Not only was he deaf to their violence, but also to his own wish to be loved and cared for by someone other than himself. He was his own parent now – the only person he could rely upon. The rain was his only friend.

He continued to stare at the water travelling down the glass pane – how each stream would bend in funny ways and refract the light. Sometimes they’d magnify the dirge of green shades of the garden’s foliage, and other times blur them – occasional yellows of dandelion heads looked like smudged watercolours behind the glass. He could hear the thrumming rhythm of the rain upon the roof, like many fingertips tapping on the skins of a hundred drums. The same rain gurgled with a slight echo as it flowed into the drain outside the door, its stuttered song indicating a blockage somewhere. Funny how he could hear the blockage without needing to see it. And again, the same rain struck the glass door pane, chiming unexpected percussive interludes, keeping its audience’s ears attentive. The music of the rain. A carriage from abject boredom to ceaseless creativity. An imagination in the making.

When it was night, the boy would take himself to bed. He would curl up on the cold slats and sometimes count sheep to help him sleep. He willed himself to dream, as the discordant voices continued to batter the walls of his outer realm. But he drowned it all out, his ears tuned in to nothing but the rain’s calming lullaby.