Sound of Rain: Part 1

There is a back entrance separate from the main road. It is a narrow alley, only wide enough for one person to pass through, stretching for about twenty meters and sandwiched between neighboring properties. The ground is graveled, but it is worn away in places, and weeds grow back quickly. One of the neighboring properties has a hedge that, although trimmed regularly, is pressing tightly against this side, making it even narrower. When it rains, it is a struggle to pass through while holding an umbrella. The other side is a burnt cedar board fence, and because this color is so dark, the alley is somewhat dim even when it is sunny.
It rains a lot in this town. Because of that, this path should naturally always be dark and difficult to pass, yet I always find myself taking this side. It is because taking the main road is a detour to get to work. Even if there is car traffic on the front side, we do not have a car. Unless guests are coming, the front entrance is not used, and since guests do not come, the front entrance is almost never used. Seen from the front, some people might think the house is uninhabited. I mostly let the garden trees grow as they please. This seems to be considered unreasonable, and I am told as much by others time and time again, but I do not really understand why others would interfere with the trees in my own garden. I wonder if common sense is something that exists in everyone's head; if so, why does that common sense not exist in mine? Setting that aside, it is a nuisance because people really do think it is an empty house and leave flyers asking to buy it, or children try to make it their playground without permission.
Common sense is a selfish illusion formed by a group. From my perspective, there are things I consider common sense within myself, and I might think of people who do not know them as unreasonable, unfortunate individuals. It goes both ways. I do not know where common sense is born or where it goes, but at the very least, there is a great divide between what they consider common sense and what I consider common sense, and I am unable to reconcile them. It is no wonder, as I have never even thought to try to reconcile them.
For that reason, whether it is the front garden, the back garden, or the courtyard, plants grow thick in my garden. Because I leave them to grow, small birds carry seeds, trees sprout on their own, and they are culled. Trees that lose the struggle for survival, no matter how much they have grown, will rot and fall. If they fall, sunlight shines through, so new buds begin to sprout again. By the time the rainy season approaches, the leaves of the deciduous trees have opened to a certain extent, and gradually the entire garden becomes overgrown. The fallen leaves that piled up last year turned into a candy-like color during the spring, and now they are indistinguishable from the soil.
Yes. Both inside and outside the house, it is dim. If it rains, it is even dimmer.
Frogs that have come up from the nearby rice paddies croak here and there. If I happen to make a rhythmic sound for some reason, they identify me as a rival and start making a racket from all directions in an instant. As if drawn by that, the sound of rain begins to echo on the roof, and today, too, the rain has intensified since the evening.
The rain creates a membrane of water and a membrane of sound, and this forest is further cut off from the common sense of the world. For example, right now, even if someone were walking on the main road shouting insults, I would never hear it. Even if there were a fire next door and someone were screaming, or if a murder were taking place, I surely would not know. This place is already outside the scope of common sense—it has been that way from the beginning—but now, more than ever, it is covered by rain, and the water blocks everything out.
I have never felt lonely being alone. That, too, is apparently considered abnormal when viewed through the lens of common sense, and I am given all sorts of unsolicited advice from those around me. Since I diligently go to work every day, I am hardly a hermit, but for some reason, perhaps because I leave through the back entrance, the neighbors seem to have the misconception that I am cooped up inside the house all day long.
One thing that has become convenient recently is that I no longer have to summon delivery services to my doorstep. There is nothing more troublesome than that. Because I used to have everything brought to me on the grounds that going shopping was a hassle, the neighbors' eyes would watch every single item, and I was misunderstood as living a flashy lifestyle. Common sense. Common sense. It is all common sense. If I receive packages somewhere else and secretly bring them home through the back entrance, no one will pry into it.
The path beyond the back entrance is also not what you would call wide. Almost no one passes through it. This, too, is "common sense" in this area; there is a tendency to think that living on foot is pathetic and a symbol of poverty. So, when I say I do not own a car, people are surprised and appalled. Everyone pushes their own common sense onto me, saying things like, "You should just buy one," "Can't you drive?" or "Isn't it inconvenient without a car?" but it is not inconvenient at all. The bus service is infrequent and expensive, but the buses do run, and if you ride the bus, you will eventually reach a train station. However, for people who believe that owning a car and driving it out for leisure is a status symbol, it seems to be an impossible situation. That is why no one walks on the back road. The interesting thing about them is that they even drive to the convenience store right nearby; I find it completely incomprehensible that they would go that far just to avoid walking on their own two feet.
The back road is always quiet. The back side of a house might also be an unreasonable place to them. Although the road is paved, it is so narrow that it seems unlikely heavy machinery will ever enter it for repaving again, and it is lined only with the back entrances of houses. To the right after exiting, it is a dead end just about five meters ahead, blocked by a concrete block wall. However, because these people, for whom common sense is important, seem to think that even the back side must be kept in order, the trees are neatly trimmed, and the road is always kept clean—I wonder when they even find the time to clean it. In a sense, it is chilling. The only place where weeds are growing is my own back entrance.

At that spot, just around the bend in the alley, I saw someone standing. The time was 6:30 PM. Since it is just past the summer solstice, it is still early for the sun to set, but because it is raining today, it is dim. I had never once seen anyone standing there when I passed through here, so I gasped and stopped in my tracks. I do not like meeting people. It would be a nuisance if they started preaching some unwanted common sense at me again. Recently, I have been trying to ignore people as much as possible when I see them, but in this narrow alley, the distance is simply too close to pass by.
I decided to kill time until that person left, wondering which back entrance they had come out of. I turned back, pretending as if I had taken the wrong path. That said, there is no place around here to kill time, so I had no choice but to just walk.

#What are you talking about

I made it 'Part 1' because I didn't finish.