Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Rain Plummetted, from Lucas's Challenge

The rain plummeted to the ground like tiny meteorites.

Correction, Joe thought. Those drops weren't tiny to the beings who lived in his back yard, the beings he watched through night-vision goggles every evening from his window while he sat in his frigging wheelchair. Those bastards had ruined his life. It was because of them that he’d fallen and broken his back, and it didn’t matter that he’d been out in the yard drunk trying to smash them up with a shovel. They were on his land, his property. And now their constant digging was starting to undermine his house. Already one corner of his porch was sagging. He could picture the honeycomb of burrows that stretched, no doubt, beneath the entire structure of his home.

But now they were getting theirs. To those little monsters the raindrops would be huge, would be meteorites in reality as they plunged explosively to earth, tearing up the elaborate grass nests and filling the pin-hole tunnels in which the creatures lived. He was glad. He imagined the water working deeper and deeper into their black holes, gurgling toward them as they scrambled for a safety they would never find. He hoped every one of the bastards drowned.

Although he couldn’t move his legs, his arms worked and he shook a fist toward the window. “Die scum!” he shouted.

Then he laughed, and pushed away from the window, and rolled himself into his kitchen. He opened his fridge and took out a beer, popped the top and swallowed deeply of the golden liquid.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, as thunder rumbled and the rain started pounding harder upon the roof. “Those rain dancers I hired are sure doing their job. It’ll rain for days. There won’t be a dry spot anywhere around here for those monsters to hide out. Wash them out. Wash them right out of my hair.”

Joe laughed. The rain plummeted to the ground like tiny meteorites. In his yard, in the dark tunnels filling with mud, a race was dying. But one of them, rising on shaky legs in a last dry chamber, began, herself, to dance. Far away, outside the orbit of Mars, something stirred in the asteroid belt. Something stirred. Many things stirred.

A rain began to move toward the earth. A hard rain. A dry rain.

9 comments:

RK Sterling said...

Wow. Good stuff - very intriguing.

By the way, I don't think I ever told you I got your story from the pet charity - it was good too.

Charles Gramlich said...

Thanks, Kate. This was from a challenge by Lucas, of course. I'm late getting my response in. Glad you enjoyed "Dark Wind."

Lucas Pederson said...

Sweet! This was absolutely awesome! I loved the line “Die scum!” he shouted.
It reminded me of something I would read in an old comic book. And the story had that twist at the end that blew me away. Very good, very cool!

Steve Malley said...

Cool!

Sphinx Ink said...

Excellent, Charles! Intriguing and definitely pulls the reader in. I'd like to see "the rest of the story."

JR's Thumbprints said...

That rain just might wash away the foundation to the house.

Susan Miller said...

I did so enjoy this and wonder if this shook you loose a bit. At one time Stu had mentioned that one of the reasons writers use assignments is to shake loose, and then I had noticed on Michelle's blog that you were having what I percieved as some type of blockage.

Anyway, I like the way you weave a mysterious tale and especially adore the ending.

Drizel said...

ooooooo nooooooo......hectic....but well done...I was imagining moles, but the end got me a bit off track..I sometimes confuse easily,.....it still was GREAT...:)

Danny Tagalog said...

Yes, the 'die scum' stood out a bit!