Free Rakshasa by Alica Knight Page A

drink in one hand and leaning on the bar with the other.
    “Nice day, isn’t it?”
    The stranger turned to me, bewildered. He mouthed something I didn’t catch. The music was something dubsteppy and repetitive, it drowned out all other sound.
    I put a hand to my ear. “Pardon?”
    He leaned in to me, so close his face was almost touching mine, and suddenly I could hear him. “What did you say?” His voice seemed to cut over the pounding bass, muffling it. His words were as clear as day and I found I barely had to shout anymore.
    “I said, it’s a nice day, isn’t it?”
    “Actually it’s going to rain later tonight.”
    The stranger moved his head back from mine and the music came back full force. I had no idea how he did that, or how he knew about the weather. We’d been in the club for several hours, but when we came in there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.
    As I was staring, mouth agape, thinking of something funny and witty to say, the guy’s drink arrived. “Okay, well,” I gave a nervous laugh. “I didn’t pack an umbrella, so I hope not.”
    I don’t think he heard me. The stranger gave me a polite nod, then with a laugh and a much more genuine nod to his distant friends, he slipped back into the crowd. I watched him disappear into the mass of people jumping to the deafening thump of the crappy music.
    Someone grabbed my arm and I spilled water all over the polished wood of the bar. Katelyn, my best friend since I don’t know when, laughed drunkenly and fell onto my chest.
    “Liiiiiibby. Libby, I’m drunk.”
    “Yes,” I sighed, “You are.” I helped her stand.
    Katelyn indicated to the blonde, college-age guy standing beside her, wearing hipster jeans and a baggy shirt. “This is Jacques. We’re going back to his place now, okay?”
    I nodded, just like I nodded every other time she’d come up to me and told me she was going home with some guy she’d barely met. “Okay.”
    Katelyn leaned in close to me, her alcohol-heavy breath blowing right in my face. “How’d you do tonight? Talk to anyone?”
    I wrinkled my nose, reaching up and pushing up my glasses. “I had a quick chat with, like, a weatherman I think.”
    “A weatherman? What the hell?”
    “I don’t know! He said it was going to rain, and then he walked off.”
    Katelyn gave a melodramatic sigh. “Libby, you have to try harder, or you’re just going to end up Libby the Loser. This is your future. A grim, dark future with a knitting circle and fifty cats.”
    Jacques was awkwardly hovering around while Katelyn interrogated me. I caught his eyes and gave him a kind of ‘help me’ look. I didn’t like Katelyn going home with strangers all the time, but it was her life, her choice.
    “It won’t be, okay? I’ll stay here and keep looking. You two go have fun.”
    I shepherded Katelyn towards Jacques and they stumbled towards the main exit together, arm in arm. I watched them go, pulling out my phone when they were out of sight. I pulled up my journal for today, tapped out Waste of time! , finished the surviving water in my glass then weaved my way through the crowd to the back exit.

    *****
    I was about five minutes out from the club, and about fifteen minutes away from my apartment, when the sky opened up and it began raining sideways.
    A wall of rainwater buffered me as I walked. That slick red dress of mine displayed a property I was not forewarned of: it turned see-through when wet. Canberra was a big place. It was late. Busses and trains weren’t running at this hour, I needed a cab. Huddling under a bus shelter I opened my waterlogged purse and pulled out my iPhone.
    Soaked through, dead and silent. I’d gotten it brand new, too, and it had taken me months to save up for.
    I waited an hour for the rain to stop but it didn’t. Freezing, with no way of contacting any of my friends and attracting entirely discomforting stares from a trio of guys who looked like they were part of a gang, I started to walk back