MEGAN PRICE: Rain
Megan Price is a self-published writer who lives in Trafalgar on the KZN South Coast.
Nothing moved, nothing stirred, everything stood still to listen. The birds held their tongues as they looked into the sky. Beneath the tall trees, beneath the ferns and rocks and branches, the forest listened. The clouds had been grey before, but never as dark as these. The ones that came before told of water falling from the sky, feeding everything it touched. Of colours one could not imagine. The young ones laughed at the folktales. But perhaps the ones before told truth. Perhaps their lives would last longer, the ferns would uncurl as droplets settled on their points, perhaps the sky would open as it did all those years before.
They all sat still atop their perches, watching, waiting, whispering of what it might feel like. The ones before sat huddled in their nests and burrows and holes, warm and dry. Their hope long since gone. The clouds had been grey before, but hope came with the fresh smell of rain. A word almost forgotten, dusty and crumbling like the forest. Thunder growled far in the distance. The promise of new life, the saviour of old ones. But such a promise had been made before, and each time broken.
ALSO READ: MEGAN PRICE: Rose
But today would be different, they told themselves.
The wind was warm, blowing through the evergreens, bringing news of what might be. Rain was coming. The first drops made them scatter, screaming as though it were fire or acid. But the water was gentle, cool against their fur and feathers. The ones before came out of their nests and burrows and holes, their eyes wide. With each drop the forest cried. The ferns uncurled, dust falling from their folds as they welcomed the rain. Rain, a word with meaning to those who could never understand it. The drops carried on through the night, the sky darker than it had ever been. But they were not scared.
They sat on their perches and watched as clover rose through the cracks of the soil, as moss came back to life on the fallen trees, the ones who didn’t live to see the rain return. The young ones sat and cried as the green of the forest showed itself again, for them it was the first time. Colours they had never seen littered the forest floor. Trees decorated with flowers for the first time in many seasons. The forest would live and the young ones now had stories to tell. Before, the forest had been the grandest thing to them all. And then it rained.
* Megan Price is a self-published writer who lives in Trafalgar on the KZN South Coast. She has written numerous flash fiction stories, one of which won The Creative Writing Ink Short Story Competition in 2022. She has also written and self-published a number of longer short stories and has sold copies all over the world.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter and Instagram
