A lone cab sped along the wet asphalt, its reflection shimmering in the waterlogged street. Inside, Lena pressed her face to the window, watching the city blur into streaks of light—like memories she couldn’t quite hold. She had come here chasing a name, an echo of her grandfather’s whispered stories. He had spoken of the Brooklyn Bridge as if it were a cathedral and the East River as if it carried the prayers of his past.
The New York of his stories had seemed vast but tender, full of quiet miracles. But the city Lena found was a furnace of fire and loss, relentless in how it carved people to their essence. She knew this now. She had been burned by love and betrayal. The city had taken pieces of her. Yet, tonight felt different. The rain was washing something away, making space for something new.
Outside, the downpour quickened, its rhythm like a heartbeat against the cab’s roof. The driver muttered in Spanish about the storm, about his wife waiting for him at home. His voice was steady, unbothered, as though reciting a prayer. Survival, after all, was stitched from moments like these—simple acts of care: a shared dinner, a phone call saying, I’m safe.
Lena’s grandfather had spoken that way too, in quiet phrases that held worlds.
The cab slowed at a red light, and Lena’s gaze caught on a family huddled beneath the dim shelter of a bus stop. A mother cradled a baby against her chest, wrapping her coat around the child to shield it from the rain. Her other hand gripped the small fingers of an older child, who blinked up at the sky, unafraid. Time unraveled. The mother became a timeless figure—a guardian from any century, shielding her children from the world’s storms.
Lena felt something tighten and release in her chest—a soft, familiar ache. When had she last felt truly protected? When had she last believed in resilience like that?
The light turned green, and the cab rolled forward. Lena’s reflection caught her eye in the window—worn but alive. She studied herself as though seeing someone new. The face staring back at her carried shadows of the past, but something else was there, too: persistence, a quiet defiance. She thought of her grandfather’s words: “Some stories are passed down, and some you have to find for yourself.”
The cab reached her stop. She paid the driver, murmuring a soft "thank you" as she stepped out. The rain greeted her with a cool kiss against her skin, gentle as a benediction. She tilted her face toward the sky to embrace the sensation completely. Somewhere behind her, the city’s lights pulsed and flickered—the heartbeat of generations who had come before her and those yet to come.
Lena walked toward the narrow street near the river's edge where her old apartment stood. The rain softened as she neared the water, and the hum of the city quieted. She listened—not for words, but for the stories she could now finally hear: birth, death, wonder, and sacrifice. She was part of it all.
Standing at the shore, the river lapping softly against the concrete, she felt something in her shift. This city didn’t just take—it remade. And now, it was remaking her.
She closed her eyes and let the rain fall.
Because New York doesn’t just make stories, she thought. It makes you believe in your own.
© Michael Arturo, 2025
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Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.
Michael also writes short literary fiction. Below is a link to his first collection.
FLATIRON and other tall tales
“Storm The Beachhead, Little Bitch"
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