A Fairy Tale for Friday!

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." ~ Albert Einstein


"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." ~ C. S. Lewis

"Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. " ~Langston Hughes


Today it is drizzling rain here. I have always loved rain.I like to here it hitting my roof. I like to see it fill and overflow the buckets sitting on my step. I love the smell and the feel of rain. When others would run through a storm trying to avoid puddles, I would walk slowly through hoping to get soaked to the skin. Dave and I have taken all the children for walks in the rain. Once staying at the beach for a week in the rain we walked all alone on a deserted stretch of sand getting all the best shells. Laughing one night as Jennifer jumped around afraid of the ghost crabs that appeared to also enjoy the soaking rain. Everyone else who camped there that week stayed inside their snug travel trailers and missed all the fun of the giant waves crashing along the shore as the rain fell in softer waves from above. Today's Tale deals with rain and what life might be like without rain. I hope you enjoy My Fairy tale for today! Have a wonderful day!
Patsy



The Last Rain

Lila knelt there, in her shuttered garden room, remembering. She had been four Years old. the same age her grandson Ivan was now. The fat drops had sluiced through her long dark hair. It had fallen across her skinny back in tangles after the drenching. Her Grandma had set buckets out all over their house that day. They had bottled gallons and gallons of water. Scarce even then, Rain wasn't even believed in now. Oh how she wished to see the miracle again. It had been years now since the last rain. Years since she had tasted the lovely droplets. Her own sons had never seen rain. Her oldest Grandson had gone down to the well this morning and came back with only a few small bottles of the precious liquid. Lila wondered how she would water her few garden plants with so little water. But at least she still had plants. So many people didn't even have that much.

The last rain had been fifty years ago. The Grand Government had drilled the now crumbling wells in the third year after that. For a lot of years men and women had drawn water from the deep pits always under the watchful eye of a well keeper. Three years ago they had declared that the cities wells were running dry. People had left the cities and headed for the North. Lila and her sons had decided to stay in the nearly abandoned city. Always hoping for a miracle. Always praying for rain. Lila hoped that they had made the right choice. Picking carefully she gathered food to fix the families one meal of the day.

"Grandma," little Ivan called to her as she worked, " tell me again about the Rain!" "Come along " She answered, seeing the disapproving look her son was casting her way." I'll tell you as we work." Lila knew her children thought she was an old fool. She knew they didn't believe her stories about rain. They had never seen rain. They thought rain was a myth. Something made up by the old ones. But Ivan was young enough to still believe in an old woman's tales.

Late that night Lila was awakened by the squeak of a door. She quietly rose and watched from behind the tattered blinds as her oldest grandson slipped from the nearly vacant High rise and was swallowed by the darkness of the street far below. She knew he was sniffing around one of the few girls still living here in the city. She had seen him hide away a potion of his meal to carry to his secret lover. Lila reckoned that they would soon have either one more or one less mouth to feed. She wanted her family to stay together. She knew what the city held for them. But to go north? Was there more water north? Lila was afraid that the friends who had gone north had not found water at all. No one had come back to tell them. It was as if they had left the city and vanished. She crept quietly back to her bed to toss and turn through the night.

"Grandma! Grandma!" Ivan called; squealing fearfully through the rooms. "Come see the sky! It's turning all Black!" Lila jumped from her bed just as the first rumble echoed through out the city. "What is that her sons yelled at her?" Running from their beds with their hungry wives close behind."Buckets!" Lila screamed at them. "Get buckets and Barrels and pots and anything else that you can find that will hold water. Hurry now! Bring them to the roof. Put them out everywhere.""Grandma?" Ivan squealed as the thunder ripped through the city again, bringing the few remaining inhabitants running into the streets. "What is it?"

"Ivan," Lila said kneeling in front of him as she let loose her Bun, freeing her hair to hang in dark tangles around her hips. " You come with me!" Holding tight to each others hand, they ran into the dusty street just as the first fat, wet, drops splattered onto the parched ground. Together they danced as the buckets and barrels filled and the cities deep wells overflowed. They danced through the empty high rise they called home and Lila gathered all the family close around her as each of them experienced their own very first rain.


written by: Patricia Sawyer
11-8-2008