Fairy Tale 2: The Rain

When the rain started, the world was dry. The plants surged upward, grateful, basking in the needed moisture. Children splashed in the puddles happily, kicked water on their parents, who laughed.

But the sprinkly storm turned heavy. The heat was moist, like a laundry room. The rain did not refresh anyone; people stopped splashing playfully in puddles and instead, began to fill sandbags with mucky brown grit. The domesticated flowers began to droop from too much water. Their leaves grew yellow, then brown at the edges, then, inexplicably moldy and finally, turned to mush.

It kept raining.

Vines dormant since the age of dinosaurs started to grow. Tiny green shoots, at first, they covered outbuildings, eclipsing their square shapes, then crept into the yard. Nothing had sharp edges anymore-- it was all soft, green, masses of tendrils. The tendrils grabbed at the children's ankles as they ran past, on their way through the downpour into the rapidly growing smaller houses. These vines had beautiful, giant flowers that smelled heavenly to the small birds and insects-- who hovered near and were snapped up, eaten by the flowers, slowly digested in slimey juices.

Still, it rained.

People forgot what lawnmowers looked like, left them to rust in the yards. The gasoliney smelling machines began to look like old art projects as the vines covered them, turned them into topiary of an ancient world. New indoor lives were found, forgetting the heat of summer, the heat of lemonade and ice cream and beaches and dry sand that sticks to the backs of legs.

The rain did not stop.

It dribbled. Drizzled. Poured. Torrents came down and then became gushers. Ditches filled up, overflowed. Sidewalks became small rivers. Doghouses floated away, some with the dogs, forgotten, perched on top of them, howling.

And the water and green kept flowing, flowing, flowing, until people forgot the words for "dry" or "dusty" and even "desert."