This is a rehash of an old story...
The Artist and the Storm
The rain was rioting on top of the tin roof.
Fluid soldiers swept through the holes and dents of the pleated metal.
Bowls were sent there like trenches to catch the flying airmen but to
no avail, they spilled over and bathed the dirt in gullies and
rivulets. When it seemed the pots would fill to their breaking point a
hand would nimbly grab the rim and toss the contents outside with a
futile sigh.
The tide was rising now and everything on the shore was silenced but
for the birds and slow plodding of crabs. God's finger, a vertical
torrent, had dipped into the surf and wandered sightlessly passed the
shore, weaving in and out of the water like a child painting.
Everyone in the hut held tight to one another, channeling life as if
through body heat.
"The closer the better," one said.
If anyone wondered why, their concerns were muted as the roof
transformed into a wild animal being drug away by the tail. Suicidal,
it sliced itself to shreds and threatened the children in kind. Its
jaws flew open like the gaping gates of hell and like a wicked beast
it caught the wind to howl so deep and foul, the boys and girls
scattered in fear of the jagged, fangs. The daggers loomed overhead,
lurching and seizing in the wind, shimming with a full vocabulary of
horrible moans.
All the children buried their heads into the chest of the oldest
holding tight, knuckles brown and soaked as their clothes were ravaged
by the gales and glassy sand.
"What will we do?"
The shack, in response, decided it was best to leave them all
stranded. It began to huff as its knees buckled at the screws and were
torn to splintering shards that splashed and sprayed suspended before
them, then shimmering, were gone.
One child wretched then slumped to the ground bonelessly. No one moved
to help her. The eldest glared at the other two blindly, his eyes,
oaken and steady, were full of earth.
"Bring her."
Again they were a tangle of limbs relying on weight alone, a plan five
lean days would not gurantee.
Teeth chattering. It had to be over soon. The black finger of death,
as dark and saturated as the children that lay swooning and swaying,
approached them formidably, coloring outside the lines and ripping up
tree after tree, gnashing them wholly with its teeth and sending them
swaying miles away. Houses swam and fish began to fly. There was a
loud thud and a burgundy spray. The eldest had lost another; his
brother lay mute beside the girl, smiling obtusely. He didn't mind
weeping; the inky expanse above had shown him how.
The last one climbed into his lap, his small hands touched his face
and rested on his knotty hair just to feel something that was real and
still breathing against the sand drifts and smacks of thunder. There
was so much power in that blackness, a will that neither could
understand.
"Will we make it?"
"Not without them."
The heavens were eavesdropping and the backdrop tore itself away.
Lightening forked away and fed on the ocean's inhabitants. And then
everything was suddenly still where the only sound that could be heard
was the solid beat of the boy's hearts.
The eldest looked up through the shaft and could see and imagine the
gentle caresses of the sun. The other child's grip loosened yet he
held him close.
To see this, the solid walls of water and great trees swirling in this
monster's lullaby, was too much. Its body curved in and out like a
woman's dancing and the blackness all around him was the earth and sky
meeting to kiss and catch up.
The boy's heart shrank and pried his ribs apart from the pressure of
being inside the eye. He gasped for breath. There was something he
must understand… something that was communicated through the light and
stolen clouds. It had to do with life, how painful it could be and how
liberating it became with toil.
He was resolute, he had to survive, even if to see to what end the
elements would take him. It suddenly didn't matter if the storm ever
let up. It had taken his home, his sister and brother, but it would
not take him. He could not be a victim of the woes of the world
because they understood each other. The solid fortress of blackness
the boy respected, in the impossible potential, he identified.
"I think I understand." He cried with all his lungs, the statement was
snatched up by the wind and in an instant the verdict fell down on
him. He was stoned brutally as solid boulders of rain pummeled them
with a venomous accuracy.
Not a second time. Was he being punished? He refused to accept it.
The three lay around him, the dark curls of the girl bowing and
reaching in fits to the sky and ground. Not twice. The finger traced a
line over their heads, skipping and jumping, weakened it tottered and
its slinky dance of seduction and death bowed out in fury. As the
defeated demon wailed oaths and curses, he pinned the children to the
ground with all the might he had. They, too, must survive.
It was his job to protect the weak ones. He could not hide from
danger, he had to live in it or not live at all. The thought crossed
his mind as he fainted.
Seagulls.
The air hung palpable and ginger in a haze. Rivlets congregated to
gossip. The crabs emerged again, righting themselves where they fell.
They carried on their set course without interruption.
Four sets of eyes watched the sunset while it flickered reds and blues
as though a painter had brushed his canvas with long dry strokes to
spite the wet.
They woke slowly and scuttled like the crabs to the mangos decorating
the beach. This fruit had been rejected by the sky and pitched to the
ground to kill them but they had survived their tormentors and would
reap the benifits. With new determinded, their shelter was righted and
as one they slumped under. Their sighs were stilled a drizzle roused
itself then fell asleep in the shadow of the moon.
A serenity and clarity that could only come from the turbulance that
is life and the resolute willingness we have to hold on, ascended on
the children. They knew everything of the infinate expanse of death
and the value and uncertainty of life. They knew everything.