Here comes the flood

I hadn’t listened to Peter Gabriel’s Here Comes The Flood in a long time, but when it came on today it took me straight back to a flight between Stockholm and London twelve years ago. Especially the line “And as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain was warm and soaked the crowd.” I have no idea what that means, but I remember looking out the window and feeling enormous relief.
The night before that trip, I hadn’t slept a wink. Literally not a single minute. My girlfriend back then was emotionally unstable, to put it mildly, and she picked a fight around midnight, as was her habit. At that time I still had hopes of saving, or at least helping, her, so we argued for about two hours. I tried to explain that I had an early flight and that I wanted to get some sleep so I would have a clear head for the research conference I was going to. That’s when she decided we had to clean the apartment.
At two a.m? I should have checked into a hotel. But I was stupid. I stayed and cleaned the damned apartment with her all night. My brain was saying “What are you doing? This is crazy!” but I couldn’t leave her. I should have, of course, but I couldn’t.
When cleaning was done, she went to sleep and I headed to the airport. It took a few hours for me to get my equilibrium back, and it happened just as Peter started singing that beautiful song. I like to think it still lowers my heart rate a couple of beats. It really is an amazingly beautiful song.