It was another hot day. Scorching. The heat cracked the ground open with its invisible tongues, baking the clay devoid of moisture, crumbling it into fine layers of dust and sand. Hues of dingy brown tainted everything with its poison. The small, isolated village could not escape from its tyranny. No one bothered to hang their laundry outside anymore, the dirt irresistibly attracted to their wet laundry. They hung their laundry in the houses to dry, instead. Villagers would often spend their days outside in the heat to escape the suffocating humidity of their houses.
And so they prayed for rain.
The old woman, a lonely old timer on the edge of the village, warned them not to pray for rain, but they did not listen to her. “This rain is not a blessing,” she repeated each day to them, as they gathered near her house to pray. “You do not know what you are asking for.”
They continued to pray for rain. They did not listen to an old woman, foolish in her ways, bound to tradition. Narrow-minded—or so they thought, for youth always disregards experience when their opinions do not mesh. They prayed every day. The began to center their days around the rain prayer, idolizing, in a way, the prayer itself. It gave them comfort, when they needed it most. They no longer worked between prayers; the heat was far too much for them to bear. Or so they said.
After weeks of praying the rains finally came on a cool wind. Blessed relief from the heat that had plagued them for uncountable days. The old woman on the edge of the village warned them that this rain was not natural, not what they prayed for. It did not matter to the villagers. All they cared about was that their prayers had finally been answered, the rain had come, and with it came the cool wind that would bring the renewal of life to the village. How the rain came didn’t matter to anyone, merely that it was here, and not leaving. The rain consumed their lives. They played in it, relished it, cherished it, and in their own way worshiped it with their reverence.
And still they did not work. The rains had come; it was a time of celebration, not of labor. It had been too hot before the rains, the youth had claimed with the sun bearing down upon them, burning their skin into the darkest shades of brown, lightening their hair into streams of golden color. Now the adults laughed, playing in the rain, running around, twirling, streams of water pouring over their bodies, molding their thin cotton clothes to their young bodies, accentuating every curve. With a smile young wives beckoned their husbands into their house, their thin white dresses hiding nothing, not even their intent.
And the old woman stayed in her home, working, knitting and sewing. Her eyes looked to the distance, long forgotten memories playing in her mind. She remembered the last time the rains had come, and she remembered many more things. And she dreamed. First it had been sparingly, but not the dreams were a frequent friend as the rains fell.
Hard, pounding rain that bruised the gentle skin it touched on its path to the thirsty ground. And soothing rain that whispered messages of sleep and peace.
It was in the gentle rains that she remembered most, and it was in this gentle rain that she dreamed. Flashes of memories, fragments of dreams. A hand reaching out, a smile...
Days of rain passed. Then the days began to melt into weeks. Weeks merged with endless months. And as the youth played, never once giving thought to the oddity of never-ending rain, never once thinking of when it would end, and what that end would bring them.
As they played, the old woman dreamed, and as she dreamed the hail came suddenly. The rains grew colder, freezing. Hail tore holes into houses, breaking windows, destroying gardens planting with loving care in the rains, the only source of food. They had starved so long on grains long since fresh, the gardens were a welcome treat, that vanished in a moment. The garden had been their hope. A hope that the rain now stole.
And still no one remembered the warnings that they had been given by the old woman, for they grieved over the loss of their work, the only work that they had done in months.
They continued not to work, as the hail chilled the air daily. It is too cold, they claimed. Our houses hold no heat, they drip with water.
All they did was lounge at home, sleeping. Children trudged to school in knee and waist deep mud. It was too cold to work but the children must learn, the children must have a future.
The old woman merely continued to sit on her porch, rocking in her chair, a dress in her lap as her hands moved to embroider frivolous designs on the simple white cotton. The young women wanted to look alluring for their lovers, their husbands. It helped to pass the time. She did not think of the purpose of her work, not caring if the dress she crafted was a wedding dress, or a birthday dress. She knew that each piece she completed, the closer to the time it came.
Her house was the only house not rained upon. She received more guests, now, as the villages sought a respite from that rains that plagued them for days, then weeks, then months. They did not seek her wisdom, which she would have offered had they asked, they wearily sough the peace of sunlight. Their pride blinded them. They sought her for her shelter from the rain, and for entertainment, searching for something to amuse themselves as the hours blended together in a mass of rain. Each time a visitor left, they departed with a dress intended for later entertainment, another futile attempt at relief. Each dress they left carrying was a dress that flew quickly through the old woman’s aged hands as the sun shone happily upon her, and the moon smiled upon her, caressing her pale wrinkled face with its beams.
She rocked on her porch, each day, her hand moving in rhythm with the squeaking of her porch, and she too passed the time with idle entertainments, waiting for what she knew would happen. It was her childhood all over again, but no one remembered her childhood, she was the only one left, wise in her age among all the young people.
Life went on as normal, eventually, as they grew accustomed to the constant rains. Houses were patched, work was finally resumed, and school continued on. Twice a week a dance was held in the town hall, and all the adults went, leaving the children at home. This allowed the children time to sneak off, to the old woman’s house, the forbidden place for them. They crowded onto her porch these nights, arranging themselves in a circle at her feet, one small child in her lap.
“Lady Mia,” they would call to her, as they swarmed into sitting positions at her feet, eager faces smiling at her toothlessly. “Tell us again about when the rains came so long ago.”
She smiled as her chair slowly rocked, squeaking against the old loose boards. She closed her eyes in remembrance. The moon shone down upon her still, brighter in these moments, and the stars seemed to dim in its brilliance.
She would always begin the story the same way. “I was your age when the rains came,” she would say. Then she would tell them about how it rained for months—sometimes cold, sometimes warm. She told them of how the children entertained themselves and of their nighttime explorations to find the end of the rain, but it seemed to go on forever, except over one old man’s house, the house that she now lived in. Then she would tell them of when the rains stopped, about how the earth was covered in a blanket of flowers, the ground once so ugly with mud, was covered in a sea of colors, the smells of spring, and happiness permeating everything.
Then a shadow would pass across her face, a bittersweet smile of remembrance. She would tell the children that was all they needed to know for now, that they would know the rest soon enough.
A hand reaching out. A smile. A promise...
One by one the children would go home, leaving her to sew in the moonlight. However one child, a little girl would stay behind. This girl was always sat in her lap when Lady Mia told stories of the rain. She was a young orphan, who having been passed from family to family now stayed with the Lady Mia.
She would look at the child, also named Mia, and smile. “Soon you will understand, dear child.” Lady Mia would say, and the child Mia would smile.
“Then He is coming for you?” The child would ask, and Lady Mia would laugh, and sew.
“In a few days, child.”
The people once again began to pray. They prayed for the rains to stop, for deliverance. The old woman said nothing to them this time, as they prayed. It was far too late to warn them, nothing could change things now. They did not, however, want the rains to stop, but even this she did not bother to tell them, knowing her voice would fall upon deaf ears.
And then the rain stopped, and spring came. As promised the scent of flowers and happiness was everywhere, blankets of color covered every surface. The children and adults frolicked, but Lady Mia sewed, watching, the child Mia sitting at her side, braiding mats of flowers.
“Soon” she would say softly to herself, and of course the child heard, and would nod her agreement, wisdom residing in the innocent eyes of a child.
The children would bring her armfuls of flowers, enough to cover her porch and fill her house. They would braid the flowers into her long silver hair, which free flowing brushed the ground, and she would smile at them, happy, and sad in the same instant.
“Why are you sad Lady Mia?” they would ask her, but she would not answer, they would know far too soon.
And then it happened one night. The small village slept, safe in their beds, the cool flower laden air flowing in through open windows and doors, a constant reminder of the happiness after the rains. Two were awake this night however, standing out in the moonlight, silently gazing over the small village. Silver falcons came on moonbeams, swooping in through windows and open doors, everywhere the moonlight fell they were. Silence penetrated everything, the birds flight eerily silent. One falcon flew into every house, and three flew out. Every house was treated in the same manner, all save one. Lady Mia’s was flown over, ignored.
Lady Mia stood on her porch, her hair braided in a crown of flowers, wearing her best dress, a white dress, embroidered over the course of many years by her own hands, with thread and with beads forming a delicate pattern over the thin cloth. The thin white dress hid nothing, if one cared to observe, and the old woman was still blessed with the body of her youth. Young Mia stood beside her, silently holding her hand. Both the woman and the child stood watching the silver falcons disappear once again into beams of moonlight.
The darkness came then, enveloping everything in its depths, the moon disappearing from the sky, the stars dimming from the sky. But neither the woman nor the girl looked towards the sky, to see the fading stars.
"Are you ready Lady Mia?"
She smiled, turning slightly as she was embraced from behind, held tightly by arms that she had not felt since that day so long ago, after the rains had come. That night a hand reached out, a young boy offering his hand to a young girl half his size with a smile.
"I have been waiting for you, my love." Lady Mia smiled down at the girl who stood at her side, taking her attention from the figure who embraced her.
"Goodbye, dear child."
Young Mia smiled, understanding, and then turned her attention to a small boy who had appeared when the night became dark. Shyly young Mia took the hand he offered to her with a smile, returning the smile with one of her own.
The children awoke in the morning to empty houses, feathers occupying the beds where parents and lovers once slept. The children then remembered Lady Mia who had lived through this before, and they rushed to see her, wanting to ask her what happened. All they found, however, was young Mia, asleep in a bed of flowers petals, shaped in a star around her young body, as the wind gently blew.
And so the children, worked and grew, continuing the work left unfinished by their parents, and waiting for the next time that it rained. Mia just sat on her porch, rocking in the chair left to her, and sewed, the light of the stars bathing her in their glow each night. She watched over the young ones as they grew, married, and loved.
And waited for the rain to come again.
