Rain

Something that i just kind of wrote one day. I'm not sure where it came from.

 

Rain

By: Rob Ellison

 

The air was damp with the smell of fresh rain, and the rolling grass was moist from the shower.  The drizzle had just passed not moments before and already there was life returning to the field from its shelters.  A pleasant breeze wafted over the plains, catching up some of the moisture and tossing it playfully into the air.  The deer resumed their mid-day meal, and the children began, once again, to run and frolic as they pleased; calling to one another and laughing in only the way a child can.  I myself found this place to be what had so eluded me in my dreams.  It was that glimpse of paradise in the corner of your mind that you know is there, but can never quite grasp it; only glimpses of what it is.  The air was always fresh and warm; there were frequent soft breezes and numerous friends and companions.  The grass was thick and soft to my bare feet, and the sky was always blue (Except for the occasional rain shower, but those never lasted for more than a few minutes, and you could always see the blue sky coming after the clouds.)  I haven’t been here for that long, but time runs differently here than in the world.  It hasn’t been night yet, but I could swear that I’ve been here longer.  Days maybe.  But from what I’ve seen, that doesn’t matter.  In fact, I somehow know that it will never be night.  Ever.  And strangely, that doesn’t bother me one bit, even though I know it should. 

            Let me tell you more about what I’ve seen so far in my time here.  Just yesterday… or… this morning, or… something, I had the pleasure of racing a deer.  Now you must realize that I have never been very athletic or anything, but up walks this deer, and he looks at me.  Don’t ask me how I know, but somehow I knew he wanted to race.  It wasn’t ESP or any of that mumb0-jumbo, I just kinda… knew.  Anyway, he looks at me and I, not wanting to be one to disappoint, acknowledge.  And he understands.  Again, don’t ask me how I know this, but I do.  So we both line up on an imaginary starting line, and then some invisible signal or sound or something, and we’re off running.  From the start I’m thinking “It’s a deer!  How am I supposed to beat a deer in a race?”  So I look over at him while were running (keep in mind that I am keeping pace with him.  I’m keeping up with a deer.  In a race.  Me.  A non-athletic guy, is running just as fast as a deer.) So anyway, I look over and I swear that the deer looked back and smiled.  How can a deer smile?  Is that physically possible?  Then I start thinking; “You know, who cares that this deer just smiled at me.  I’m gonna try and win this race.”  So I smile as I turn back and run harder.  Now I’m running faster than him.  Holy Cow!  I’m running faster than a deer! 

            By this time, all manner of people and animals and things are watching and cheering.  (Not for either the deer or me; just cheering the race.)  I’m pulling ahead now, running even faster, grinning from ear to ear; that’s when my foot caught the rabbit hole.  I tumble head over heals and land a few feet away.  Aw man. I blew it the deer won.  I shouldn’t even get up.  I look up to see how far ahead the deer is, but what I see is amazing.  The deer is right next to me, just waiting for me to get up!  Woah, that was unexpected.  But, hey.  I nod my thanks, and then we’re off again; the final stretch!  The wind is whipping through my hair as I sprint ever faster, ever onward; the coolest thing is that I’m not even out of breath!  I’ve been sprinting as hard as I can for the past two minutes, and all that’s happened is that I’ve just been going faster! 

            I don’t even remember who won the race, just the cheering for me, cheering for the deer, and just cheering and praise in general.  (Did I mention that I’m not even winded!)  That was the most fun I have had in a very long time.  If you ever get the chance, you should try it. It’s a very exhilarating experience. After that, I smiled at the deer and ran off with my newfound knowledge.  I wonder what else I can do here that I couldn’t before?  I don’t know what direction I went, or for how long, but I sprinted the whole way; waving at people and others as I passed.  You know, that’s another thing I noticed about this place.  There are tons of people, and lots of animals… but no towns.  No villages.  No cities.  I mean, I’m not complaining, but where do people live?  Where does one get food? (I’m not hungry or anything, but even I like the taste of a good apple or orange every now and then.)  Speaking of food, shouldn’t I be hungry after such a long run?  Yet, I feel fine.  Hmmm.  Interesting.  But that’s fine by me! 

            What was I saying?  Oh yes.  I wasn’t quite sure where I was going, but that didn’t matter since I was sure I would get somewhere; and I was enjoying myself.  So when I got to a forest, my curiosity was nudged.  It was one of those great big forests with the huge trees that seem to almost touch the sky, but that also light dances down from the bows and skips along the forest floor, playing catch with the squirrels.  The trees were magnificent!  I couldn’t fit my arms around them they were so big!  And when the breeze blew through the branches, it seemed almost as though they were talking to one another!  Laughing and conversing in their leafy, russtley language.  I wanted to sit and listen for a while, and watch the squirrels play hide and seek, but I also wanted to climb up to the canopy and see what was up there.  It was an easy climb since each tree was woven over by vines of some sort; and I made it to the top in no time.  I didn’t think there would be much anyone up there, since it was so high, but I was wrong.  When I got up to the top, the sunlight shone down on birds of every shape size and color imaginable!  There were little sparrows, macaws, toucans, parrots, robins, eagles, and so many other sorts that I could spend forever telling you about each one.  Not only that, but there were monkeys swinging from branch to branch, and squirrels and chipmunks frolicked through the leaves.  There was so much life; I wasn’t sure where to look!  I saw some of the monkeys grabbing onto vines, and diving through the leaves towards the forest floor, screeching in glee as the vine pulled them back up and they landed on another tree branch some distance away.  That looked like fun!  I found my way over to where the monkeys were, and they greeted me with screeches and tossed me a vine.  I looked down towards the floor, debating on jumping; the monkeys were all jumping up and down in excitement and screeching their encouragement.  One scrambled over, and perched himself on my shoulder eager for the ride.  Well I couldn’t let him down, so, I jumped.  Now That, is a rush!  Leaping out into the open air at about six hundred feet up, clutching on to a vine as thick as your arm!  I dropped like a stone for a few seconds, and then felt the vine tug against my weight as it swung me upward once again.  My little companion was chattering incessantly in my ear, about how he loved to do this sort of thing daily and how it was his favorite pastime.  (No the monkey was not talking, I just… understood him.  Like with the deer.)  We caught another branch, and sat there for a moment letting the thrill seep in.  The monkey said he’d be right back, and scampered away into the trees.  I sat there waiting and absorbing everything for a few moments; the sights, the sounds, the smells, and all at about five hundred-something feet in the air, sitting on a tree branch big enough to hold a Toyota.  This is cool.  My little friend came back a bit later holding an armful of fruit of various kinds.  I think there were some blueberries, strawberries, peaches, a grapefruit, some apples, and various other small fruits.  He spread them out and chattered to me to help myself.  After all, he quipped, I had just given him a free ride. 

            I must say, I have never in my life had the pleasure to enjoy a peach as good as the one I enjoyed up in that tree with that monkey.  It was perfect.  Not too mushy, and not too crunchy, but very juicy and delicious.  I have to find out where he got that fruit.  Oh!  And the strawberries were absolutely awesome!  They weren’t the little dinky ones you usually get from a store, no, these were the big ones!  Red, ripe, and sugary sweet!  Man they were good!  I finished up eating, and thanked the monkey who grabbed another vine, laughed, and flew off into the trees chattering to the world.  I myself took a vine and dove off into the branches.  I swung on for some time, and after a while decided to walk.  I wanted to see what was on the forest floor.  When I got to the next tree, I picked my way down much the same way I had gone up.  The squirrels were still playing tag, and having a jolly good time of it; but there was something I hadn’t noticed before.  A lot of the trees were coated in bright orange.  Not solid orange, but speckled with black.  I wondered what it could be with that kind of color, since I had never seen nor heard of bright orange moss before, so I went to take a look.  I walked over to the closest orange tree and peered at it for a moment.  It was weird, the color wasn’t solid… it kind of moved and twitched.  Then it hit me; or rather, flew at me.  Butterflies.  The trees were covered in butterflies!  Hundreds of them!  Thousands!  Tens of Thousands of orange butterflies!  I had never seen so many in one place before!  I reached out to touch one, and then the whole multitude of them (all Ten Thousand or more,) took off in a bright orange cloud.  Everywhere I looked, orange!  I wondered when they would leave, but at the same time I thought it was so cool to be surrounded by so many butterflies! It was a bit strange, because I felt like I was being lifted into the air, but butterflies couldn’t pick me up.  I weighed at least two hundred pounds.  Couldn’t happen; I thought.  Until the cloud of butterflies around my head flew off to help support my body; that’s when I realized that we were already halfway to the top of the trees!  I saw my monkey friend waving at me from a branch and laughing, so I waved back and he just laughed all the harder, chattering and pointing.  We burst through the layer of leaves in an orange flurry, and began to waft upward and onward with the wind. 

            A thousand feet up in the air, being carried by butterflies.  Now that is cool. (Not to mention a great view…)  I could see for miles in all directions!  The grassland behind me, the forest below me, mountains ahead, the sea to my side, some hilly country to my other side; the country was beautiful!  The rivers winding their paths through the terrain, some waterfalls coming out of the mountains… and the quietness; butterflies don’t make much noise you know.  The cloud of orange butterflies carried me for some time before landing, the new forest we landed in was just as grand as the other, but with different trees, different smells, different things living in it.  I smiled.  It was amazing what I had seen and done. I started walking along again when, with a screech of greeting, an eagle swooped down in front of me.  Now, I had never seen an eagle up close.  Come to think of it, I had never seen an eagle from a distance either.  It was a magnificent bird!  It’s huge wings, the yellow beak, the talons gripping the earth, and its size!  It stood almost to my chest!  It cocked its head quizzically to one side, and… smiled.  Don’t ask me how a bird can smile, it just did.  Then it spread its enormous wings and with an almighty gust of wind took off, but not before it had grabbed my shoulders in its talons.  The bird screeched as we ascended, and how fast too!  I thought flying with butterflies was neat, but that was nothing!  The eagle reached the same height as I had been before, but in a matter of minutes!  Then he dove with another ecstatic shriek.  How does that song go again?  Something like “Raise you up on eagles’ wings” and so on?  Yeah, well that song doesn’t do the experience justice.  We soared through the clouds with the steady wing beats keeping us aloft.  The air rushing by your face, through your hair.  It was pure joy!  We swooped through clouds with the eagle shrieking, and now me yelling at the top of my lungs.  Not from fear, but from freedom.  I didn’t have a care in the world!  There was nothing better I could have possibly imagined!  We dove and skimmed the treetops, spiraled through the sky in a mad corkscrew, and then pulled off a spectacular dive down a canyon. 

            When we finally stopped, I just dropped and lay in the grass; too overwhelmed from the days experience.  The best part was, it didn’t even seem like noon yet!  It was still morning!  Wow time was different in this place.  I decided to just lie in the grass for a while and think, after thanking the eagle for a most exhilarating experience of course. 

            I wondered how I had gotten here, I had memories of another life, but it was hard to remember them.  It was like the place I was in now was kind of, washing them away.  I still knew all of the people in my memories, my wife, children, friends, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents; I still knew all of them.  I just couldn’t quite recall some of the memories.  I had all of the good ones, like my son learning to ride his bike, or when my dad took me fishing, but there were a few, for some reason, that I couldn’t recall.  I knew I had the memories, but it was like knowing a word on the tip of your tongue, but not being able to say it.  I just couldn’t recall what those memories were.  It didn’t really bother me though; I had every one of my good memories, and even some that I didn’t realize I had.  Like my first Christmas at one year old; I didn’t know I remembered that. 

            While thinking all of this, just lying out in the sun, a man walked up to me.  I felt that I knew him, but didn’t recognize him.  I knew that I should know exactly who he was, and I also felt that he had been with me all my life.  He was like a forgotten friend.  Well, I asked him who he was, and he just smiled and his eyes laughed and he said that I knew who he was.  Well I still couldn’t quite put my finger on who he was, but I knew he was a friend, so we sat and talked.  When we were talking, I noticed that he was hurt.  He had holes in his wrists and some cuts and scrapes on his forehead.  I mentioned the wounds and asked who he came to have them in such a wonderful place.  He smiled again and told me that he had gotten those wounds so that I could come to this place; then he told me the story that I had learned so long ago in bible school, and had since forgotten.  He told me the story of the man who lived a perfect life, who started a religion that shaped the world, who chose first 12 followers as his helpers, who preformed miracles and did wondrous things.  He told me how that man had been taken prisoner and put on trial, beaten, bruised, and whipped; how he had carried a cross to a hill so that he could die and take the sins of the world and save it, but then three days after he had died he rose to fulfill a promise. 

            I’m not sure when exactly I started to cry during His story, but I do know that after it was over the tears would not stop coming.  I cried for sadness at what this man had endured, and in joy that he had endured it all for me!  When my tears had subsided, though my face was still streaked, he took my hand and told me to follow Him, that he wanted to show me who else had come to this place.  We walked through the field for a ways and I was wondering whom to expect, when we cleared a small rise and there before me were all of my old friends, and my family, and even more people whom I didn’t even know running and jumping and playing and just having a good time.  I looked at the man standing beside me, he hugged me and told me to go and see those that I loved.  I didn’t want to leave this man, but He told me not to worry, that I could see Him whenever I wanted.  After all, He lived there too. 

Reviews

[Kelly B]

Lovely. An easy read. All the descriptive parts were great, mostly cuz I can never pull those off. And I love love loved the end! Just...really good!

[Manish Goyal]

Hi Rob,

Sometimes when you read something or think of something, it brings back a missing part of you. Something you lost on your way to where you are. This piece of work is well crafted and beautifully written, and quite honestly, one of the best i've read. Actually quite possibly the best i've read. It filled my senses with the a momentous sanity, a moment of contenment.

You're a good writer.

Manish.