Scientist

I play scientist on a rainy day.

I take the individual observations,  pour them onto a plot, form a cloud, dissect it with a straight line. They scream. They do not want to be separated. But they are just residuals now. I feel scared. I remove the line. It was just a joke. They are whole again, holding hands.

I take facts and spread them on the game table. They are to form a big picture. I rise above them, they get smaller with each new connection I make until I see the whole thing built by my imagination.

I look into a microscope to see tiny crystals. They are beautiful. The symmetry takes my breath away. I feel like I was just revealed something intimate. Am I prying?

I look out the window and see people walk by. Each one's route means nothing, only the patterns are significant. They all stop at the red light, all walk when it turns green. I admire the predictability. I can build inference from it. Then they cross the street, dissipate, and become uninteresting again. I wonder if they are predictably miserable in the rain.

The rain. It is pounding down the drain, does not want to stop. Does rain cause everything to look gray? Or is it simply correlation?

I step outside.

Soaked in the rain, black umbrella above my black silhouette, I am no statistic. No data point. I am breathing the rainy air. I am free.

The scientist went out of town. I am making love to the artist.