RAIN
Centuries ago, there lived a poet who loved nothing more than a rainy day. She loved the way it could change the color of the world. She loved the sound of applause it made on her roof. She loved how it could turn any day dark as night. She loved the flash of lightning, and the earth-trembling boom of thunder.
It was from the rain that she drew her inspiration. She'd written several poems personifying it, not as something angry, only loving. On days that just wouldn't seem to get any better, it was as if the rain would come pouring just for her, to wash the stress of the day off her shoulders. Sometimes she had fantasized that the rain really was coming just for her, like the loving character in her poems. At times, when she fantasized about these things and saw a storm cloud coming, her heart would skip a beat. She would only shake her head and pull herself back to reality, though; but there was always that small part of her that still believed
As she fantasized, the Rain watched her. He'd watch her stare at him, not with resentment as everyone else would, but with absolute awe and admiration. As she wrote them, he read her poems through her window, over her shoulder. While other poets described him as destruction or rogue, she saw him as something of beauty and peace. He loved her heart and her way of looking at things. It wasn't long before he had fallen for her.
Time passed and the poet thrived. She, in her prime, was pursued by many desperate men, all distasteful to her, but nonetheless, this angered the Rain. In those days, every time he'd come to pour down on her home, there was someone else with her.
That was when the Rain finally came to a decision; he came to her door as a man. He explained to her that he was the rain and that he couldn't go on watching her from afar any longer.
She only laughed, thinking that he was just another pursuer trying to win her over. She asked if he mistook her for a fool.
He smiled realizing this. Then he reached down and plucked a dandelion from the ground. Holding it in front of him where she could see, he cupped his hand around the top. When he removed his hand, in the place of white fuzz, there was fuzz of every color; all blended to one another. She gasped.
He held it out slightly toward her. He told her that it was every color the sky had ever turned. Hesitantly, she reached for the multicolored flower and just before she could touch it, it blasted into light; like a star in the shape of a dandelion. He told her this was a small piece of the sun and now it was hers.
She cried in disbelief. This was the Rain, the one she had fallen in love with without a face to look at or a hand to touch, without even knowing if he was listening, or if he could at all. Yet here he stood before her. They embraced.
For two weeks he stayed with her and it rained every one of those days. For it to rain in one place for so long was dangerous. He told her that he would have to leave her, but promised to come back as soon as he could. That's how it was: he'd arrive, stay for three days at the most, and then leave again.
After a year of this, she knew she couldn't live that way anymore. She pleaded with him to stay longer or to come more often. He explained to her then the way he did a thousand times before; that it would ruin the balance in the world. She put her foot down.
"Take me with you," she begged. And with much enthusiasm he agreed.
Inspiration flowed into the poet in every step she took with him. With her muse by her side, it became almost impossible not to write of every emotion she felt and share it with the world. Her readers came to know her as, "The Mistress of the Rain" because everywhere she went, it rained.
Everywhere he went she followed; around the world and back again, loving every second of it, taking her piece of the sun with her—the dandelion never withered. His wife, however, did.
Years passed. She was now an old woman and had grown weary of traveling. Whenever the Rain told her that she needed to stop and rest for a few days, she would urge them forward; until one day she collapsed. The Rain took her to a doctor who told him she was ailed with a muggy build-up in her lungs; possibly from the constant rain they'd been experiencing lately.
She had been in the rain for most of her life.
He said she was too old to recover from it with out a drastic change. The Rain asked what sort of change he was talking about. He said that if the rain subsided she may have a chance, but if it continued she would surely die.
The doctor left them alone, and the Rain told her he was leaving. She begged him to stay. She said this day would come sooner or later anyway. She told him she wouldn't survive even if he left. The Rain told her that if there was any chance of keeping her alive he would take it, even if it meant leaving her.
She said that she would rather die.
The Rain clenched his teeth and swore that she wouldn't die. Then he vanished. He'd do anything to keep that promise. He paid a visit to his mother, the mother of all Earth.
Her kingdom was located somewhere between night and day and right on the intersecting point where spring, summer, fall and winter joined. His mother worried about her son's unexpected visit, particularly because he came as a hurricane; a sure sign of his distress. He explained the situation he'd been keeping from his mother. The rain told her that he had fallen in love, and that the soul who held his heart was human, and she was at the brink of death.
He begged her to make his wife immortal, or to give her extra time on Earth. She told him that was impossible. Human bodies can only last so long. When their time comes, nothing can be done.
He pleaded with her to take his life at the same time as hers, then.
She explained that the world needed him too much to take his life. With as must sympathy as she could muster she advised him to make his final moments with her last.
The Rain returned to the Earth, but even then he still felt completely detached from it.
A message from the doctor was waiting for him when he returned. She had gotten worse. The doctor wasn't sure what had changed but what ever it was it was quickened her death. The Rain knew, though, that it was her stubborn anxiety of his not being there that was killing her. The doctor urged him to come see her, if only to say goodbye.
The Rain felt as though someone had stabbed him in the chest. If he returned, so would the rain, but she wouldn't. If he stayed away she would suffer and die.
With a heart like lead, he returned to her. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. She was too weak to say anything, too weak to smile, so she just took his hand.
All she wanted was for him to be there with her, to hold her hand and smile at her as she slipped away from this world. It would be her perfect ending.
The Rain didn't smile, though. He looked down at his wife, the only thing he ever loved, so fragile and breakable now. He looked at what she held in her other hand. The dandelion still glowed as bright as it had that first day and everyday after that, only now, it was being held by brittle, wrinkled fingers. He resented that flower now. Why should it never wither? Why should it shine as bright as it had long ago, yet here his wife must lie dying? If only she could share its fate, he thought.
His eyes widened and he smiled at her. She looked at him confused, but he only smiled the wider. He lifted her up and carried her outside to the rain. She closed her eyes and smiled as the drops came down on her face, thinking about the days he spent with her when they first met.
He laid her down on the ground. She looked at him still confused.
He leaned in and whispered, "A piece of the sun" then he rested one hand on her stomach and the other on her forehead. Then, in an instant, she was light, bursting the way the flower did. She looked at her hand in amazement. He bent down again, only this time he whispered, "And every color the sky has ever turned." From her feet to her head he swept his arm over her. She wasn't only a bright light anymore. Now, she was shimmering brilliant shades of every color. She looked at him, he was still grinning.
He cradled her hand in both of his, holding it to his lips and with a kiss she suddenly felt weightless, her body like a mist. This shimmering, colorful mist she felt, spread like fog under her. The Rain helped her stand and taking her into his arms the ground disappeared from beneath them.
She looked down, and saw the world getting smaller under them. She also saw that in the place of her husbands legs there were gray clouds. She saw that she was leaving a long trail of color behind as her body slowly dissolved the higher they went. After a while, arms no longer bound her to the Rain, because she wasn't human.
She was a streak, a streak of light and color that streamed across the sky.
She asked the Rain what he had done. He explained that he had done to her the same that he did to the dandelion. He told her that although a human life time with him may be enough for her, it wasn't for him. He said that humans couldn't live forever, but she could; that now, like how the flower would never wither, neither would she.
She was instantly filled with joy beyond comprehension; to know that anyone could ever love her as much as he did was over whelming. They rejoice to this day. He turned her into the first rainbow so that forever, as she always had, wherever he went, she followed.
