Rain on a Wednesday

            It was July when the Rains started.  I welcomed it with open arms, as one often does in the hottest part of the summer.  Besides, rain always makes me feel closer to the Earth.  It makes the ground wet and yielding, and one can change the landscape by merely stepping on it.  During such a storm I would often sit on my porch, sheltered from the rain but admiring it like a zoo exhibit: from a safe distance.

            The Rains started on a Wednesday, as do many great historic events.  I sat at my table, feeling the air-conditioned comfort of the indoor dog days of summer.  It was for this reason that I didn't notice when the actual environment became cooler.  I was only alerted by a crash of thunder, which shook my concentration from the book I was reading. 

            I glanced out the window and the sky had grown dark.  Not the indistinct gray of a winter's day in between snow falls, but the violent black/gray that often precedes summer thunderstorms.  "Something wicked this way comes," said Trevor.  Trevor was my imaginary dog.  Trevor sometimes said things I didn't instruct him to.  I was never sure if this was normal or not.  I went back to my book, unconcerned with the rain and unfamiliar with Trevor's quote.

            The rain continued through the night and into the next day.  My mother went to work like normal and my father continued to be dead, so I was alone in the house again that Thursday.  The paper said that today would be clear, highs in the 90's.  "There is no such thing as an exact science," Trevor said somewhat indignantly, as if he could have predicted the weather.  The sky began to concern me.  The sky was still that violent shade of gray, which normally faded after a few hours.  The night before it had completely blocked out the crescent moon, and the thunder and lightning had lulled me to sleep.

            I got my lunch out of the refrigerator and pulled a chair up to the window.  Trevor trotted up next to me.  The clouds swirled as buzzards circling a dying beast.  Lightning flashed, flickered, disappeared, and flashed again.  The stream which ran through my backyard had nearly reached its highest level before it overflowed.  I nibbled at my P.B.J., but my attention was taken up by the rain.  "There's so much of it," I thought.

            Trevor had that look on his face that he got when he wanted to say something.  "What is it?" I asked him.  "There's something wrong with this rain," he said.  Even though he had spoken, the look of discontent never left his face.  He decided that we should go outside.  We stood there like a couple of fools.  We stood until we were dripping wet.  I didn't mind.  Trevor always had a reason for whatever he did (except for that time he tried eating spaghetti through his nose).  At last he had an epiphany.  "It feels too urgent," he said.  "Rain by its nature is chaos.  This rain has a purpose."  I could feel it too.  This was rain that did not screw around.  This rain meant business.

            Whatever purpose the rain had, it was not finished by Sunday when my mother dragged me to church.  When there are torrential downpours for five days without stopping, a town takes notice.  The Reverend even devoted his sermon to the subject.  I even listened, since Trevor refuses to follow me to church.  "At the end of the Noah story," the Reverend said, "God promises never again to flood the earth.  We have nothing to fear."  Later on that day I told the sermon to Trevor.  "This rain has nothing to do with God," he said.

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            By the next Wednesday the stream in my backyard had long since flooded.  The flood which formed was engulfing my backyard and was slowly inching its way towards my house.  The sky had never changed, save for the change to darkness at night.  This troubled me to no end.  If this continued until December, as I knew it would, this town would become buried in snow and encased in ice.  The temperature had not climbed above seventy since the Rains started. 

            Trevor refused to go outside because he claimed the rain talked to him.  "It's faith in its purpose is unflappable," he said.  "It wants me to go with it."  I realized that I had to do something.  Downed trees with lightning burns were becoming commonplace sights.  The power company insisted it was a miracle that no one had gotten cut off.

            The following Sunday we drove through roads that were more like rivers to get to church again.  This Sunday the Reverend had no comforting words.  "Remember to keep your pets inside," he said.  "Except fish, of course."  He laughed shyly.  My neighbor was sitting next to me, playing with his prayer book in a far-off manner.  "What's the matter?"  I asked him.  He was younger than me, and we didn't particularly get along, but I had nothing else to do. 

            "It's my mommy," he said.  "I think she has a machine that makes the rain."

            "What makes you think that?" I asked condescendingly.

            "I dunno," he said.  "I just do."  After we returned home from church I walked to his house, my umbrella barely keeping out the rain.  A lot can be said for instinct.

            His mother answered my knock.  She said what a surprise it was to see me.  "Can I come in?" I asked.  "It's wet out here."  At the mention of the weather, a guilty look crossed her face.  A lot can be said for instinct.  She invited me inside.

            "What can I do you for?" she asked.

            "I'm going to ask you a question," I said, "and I want an honest answer.  Do you know what is causing the rain?"

            There was an awkward pause, a flash of lightning, and Trevor was at my side.  I needed his support to stand up to an adult like this.  Thunder crashed loudly before she finally answered.  "Come downstairs," she said.

            I followed her into her basement.  There was a toy train track set up on a table that her son had put together.  Set off in the corner was a blanket, and it was to this that she walked.  "I feel almost silly," she said.  There's no reason to think that this is what was causing the rain.  It goes against everything I believe.  Everything I can believe."

            "But..." I urged.

            "But," she said, "I know this is it.  Somehow I can feel that the rain wants to get to this."  She pulled the blanket aside.  "I found it in the stream about a week and a half ago."  Underneath was a log.  It was broken off from something on the top and bottom.  There were markings all over it.   Looking at it, I could see what she meant.  This was what was causing the rain.

            "So," she asked, "what do we do with it?  Burn it?" 

            "The ashes will have the same effect," I said, somehow certain I was telling the truth.  I looked to my left for emotional support and just maybe the answers. 

            "All rivers flow into the ocean," Trevor said in a far off manner.  At this time I got the feeling that not only was I not controlling him, he wasn't controlling himself.  He had, of course, given me the answer, though.

            I took off my shoes.  "I suggest you do the same," I said to my neighbor.

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            I waded through the pond that had been her backyard.  It was the same at every house on my side of the street.  When I looked up, I saw once again the swirling effects of the clouds.  Only now I could see that they were swirling around what I was holding in my hands.  Lightning flashed wildly and the thunder attempted to drown out my words.  I walked to where I knew the stream used to be before its borders became confused.

            "Where exactly did you find it?" I asked.

            "I can't remember!" she shouted as thunder rolled directly over our heads.

            "Yes you can," I said calmly.  She pointed at a spot.  I walked to where she pointed, placed the log there, and let go.  The currents picked it up and drew it towards my house, and then down to wherever the stream goes.

            "You interrupted it's path," I said.  "I've put it back on course".  My neighbor was sobbing for no reason and, illogical as it was, I could feel tears building up in my eyes, too.  Trevor trotted out to join us. 

            "There goes the most charismatic piece of wood I've ever met," he said.

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            Later on that day the National Weather service reported the storm as moving east.  A day later the rain stopped in our town.  That Tuesday the temperatures climbed back to 90 degrees.  In two weeks, the flooding was gone.

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            That Sunday night, I dreamed.  I dreamed of five men standing in a circle, their skin dark and their hair long and white.  They stood on ground that was cracked and barren with lack of water, and they stood around what must have been the only tree for miles.  They chanted for what might have been five minutes or half an hour.  When they were done chanting, the tree was no longer there.  They now stood around a pole, as tall as the tree had been.  The pole had markings all over it.  One of the men looked into my eyes, and I woke up.

            I told Trevor about my dream the next morning.  "Are you familiar with the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy?" he asked me.  I informed him that I wasn't.  "It states," he said, "that matter can neither be created nor destroyed in a reaction.  The same for energy.  They merely take on different forms."  I was wondering what his point was, and I told him this.

            "My point is," he said, "that if it applies to mass and energy, might it not pertain to magic as well?"  I shot him a puzzled look.  "Say you had a magic wand," he said, "that had enough magic and was big enough to effect a large area.  If this wand were to become significantly smaller, might it still have just as much magic, only exerted more strongly over a smaller area?"

            I shot him another puzzled look and invited him outside to splash in the puddles.

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                                                      Epilogue      

                "A story, like a stream, never ends.  It just flows into a larger body."

                                                                        -Trevor, in a discussion over lemonade the  

                                                                        following Wednesday

            The captain, despite his many years at sea, had never gotten over his sea sickness and was pleased to finally be heading back home.  The crewmen were all tired and he couldn't wait for a decent home-cooked meal.  Once again, he pondered why he worked in shipping instead of for Carnival.

            By the time the sailor had shouted, it was too late to steer the boat away.  The Captain, right before the storm was upon him, thought that he had never seen such black skies before.  And how fast it moved!  He said one last prayer and headed inside.

            Several hours later, a log floated through the wreckage of everything that had been on the boat’s deck.  It lodged in one of the lifeboats and stayed there.  The rain tried it's hardest to reach the log.  And the log called out to the heavens with its marvelous markings.