More Than Once: Thoughts on TwiceAlive’s “Only When It Rains”

So one of my favorite bloggers, TwiceAlive, asked me if I could give my thoughts on his short stories that he published on his blog. Rather than giving him a long comment on it, I decided to make it into a blog post review. Haha.

For this post, I am going to discuss TwiceAlive’s short story entitled, “Only When It Rains.” This story is about a man and woman meeting each other only on rainy days.

My overall impression of this story is that these two people have a physical relationship, but are not officially together. We don’t know the reasons why they can’t be together, but at this moment in time, they are just “friends with benefits.” There is a metaphor where Twice Alive described the city as an “animal.”

Yea, an animal. A living organism. The buildings and skyscrapers are its bones, growing big and strong. The cars are like the blood cells going about, delivering supplies, and the roads are its veins.

The city may appear to be an animal, but we are also reminded that humans are animals as well. In its simplest form, sex is as animalistic and primitive you can go. Even if there is no emotions and feelings between two people, humans desire intimacy in the form of sex. That physical touch is food to satisfy the hunger within an animal.

It seems that these two people desire to be exclusive, but it isn’t the right time yet. A major key component when it comes to love is timing. If the timing is off, then the relationship will not last. Hence, it seems that these two people are trying to get the timing right in order to be together. For instance, the fact that they only see each other when it rains is a symbol of that perfect timing. However, they still can’t fully commit to each other for some reason. They are close to each other, but still so far apart; hence, they only make-out as oppose to having full on sex.

At the end of the story though, the girl leaves the apartment. I get the impression that she isn’t going to come back. The reason is that Twice Alive mentioned cherry blossoms.

The cherry blossoms in spring, especially, are so beautiful to look at. It’s my favorite time of the year. Now that I think about it, the blossoms remind me a lot of her. So vibrant, so stunning, and yet so gentle and soft.

Cherry blossoms are beautiful. However, cherry blossoms are short-lived. They die quickly as soon as it blooms. Although the woman is beautiful and it may seem that the two will be together, I think their relationship will not last. I know, it sounds sad, but this is just my opinion. I do not know what TwiceAlive has in mind though. He could have thought of something different.

Overall, I enjoyed this short story written by TwiceAlive. If you want to read it, check it out here.