El Aguacero

When the aguacero, a violent and sudden thunderstorm, came in four days ago, I was on my terrace, doing circuits on my little climbing wall, trying to distract myself. My mind has started to get fixated on different ideas daily: on the people I will see when this is over, on future plans to travel, on routes outside that I would like to climb, on how to build a life that does not result in being alone in times of crisis. Climbing keeps the fixations at bay, giving me relief from the chatter, at least for a few hours.

I was not the only one with this idea to exercise. Many of us are trying to tame our demons. The city streets are empty, but rooftops are bustling. I could see others on their terraces too, running laps back and forth, doing jumping jacks, or jumping rope. Some did yoga, others dance routines. More than a few just paced: back and forth, back and forth. 

Between attempts on the climbing wall, I would watch these neighbors. In turn, they watched me. After a month in quarantine I feel like we have gotten to know each other, though they are far away and we have never spoken. The woman doing jumping jacks had bright pink hair at the beginning of all this. She wore lycra outfits that accentuated a body that, even from a distance, I could tell was not entirely natural. These days the black roots of her hair have grown and the pink is retreating farther and farther out. She exercises less and does not seem to care about what she is wearing. She and her boyfriend come outside late in the afternoon and spend most of their time now sitting and talking with each other.

Across the main road is another couple. They had lunch together every day on their rooftop terrace when this began. He would grill and she would make cocktails. They turned on the dangling Christmas lights above them even during the middle of the day. They would clink their cocktail glasses together and sit side by side and talk as they ate their meal. They have not been out for a few days now. The last time I saw them, they still sat side by side, that time working on their laptops and talking less. The Christmas lights remained off.

Their neighbor sometimes climbs atop the little building on the roof that accesses the stairs. He stands on it and talks with someone on his phone. He must use video, because he puts the phone out from time to time and pans around himself, showing whoever he is talking to his view of the hushed metropolis. He is there every few days. When he is not on the phone he stands pensively, unmoving, staring out at the city.

The aguacero sent everyone into their apartments. I have a little roof over part of my terrace and so I decided to stay and continue climbing. To be out of the apartment and climbing is always better. The first drops fell large and heavy and beat against the thin roof in staccato. At first, it seemed that the storm might be capricious, threatening only a little and then going away. But it was not so. After a brief lull, the staccato returned and grew into a deafening white noise, drowning out the music I was playing. Hail pounded the open area just beyond the climbing wall and thunder rolled in the distance. 

There have been full days during this quarantine where I have realized I did not say a word, days when there are no calls from friends or family, when I do not have to meet with my students via video conferences, when I can’t find the motivation to sing along to music nor to keep myself company with advise or, failing that, derision. But when the aguacero had reached its crescendo and the heavens were unleashing their deluge, I yelled back at it at the top of my lungs.  

My terrace filled with water, the rain still mixing with hail and bouncing against the pool that the drains could not release fast enough. I shouted and cheered and felt alive again. I continued to climb, more aggressively now, throwing myself at small holds, kicking my feet through the air. The water came in under the roofed area and threatened to soak my crashpad and so I had to move it to a corner. All the while I laughed and shouted and hoped the storm would never stop.

But the pool spread so much that I could no longer climb on the wall, and so I too had to retreat into my apartment like my neighbors had retreated into theirs. I ran to my stairway, getting soaked in the process, and pounced down my stairs, my chest heaving and heart beating madly.

At my window I watched the rivulets pour down the glass and distort the image of the street below and the apartments beyond. There, across the way, was a woman by herself, also standing at her window. The rain lashed down between us and our figures melted into something impressionistic. I watched her. She watched me. The storm flashed and boomed around us. Framed in her window, she became like everyone was becoming: a distant abstraction. 

The evening darkness seeped in and though the storm began to lift, I could not make the woman out in her window anymore. When the last clouds moved on, and a few stars appeared over the city, that familiar quiet returned: quiet enough for my thoughts to start creeping back. I stayed at the window, watching, and waiting to see who would return now that the storm was over.