The Rainmaker

     Turning off the television I walked over to my bedroom window. The clouds grey and the rain began to pour. I don't know what drew me there every time it rained. I saw the same thing every time. Most everyone in Durlington did. He had become a folk legend. For the past twenty years people had seen the walking figure. The man-like apparition would walk slowly on the right side of the road during every thunderstorm. Thus the townspeople had dubbed this being the rainmaker. Wether or not the rainmaker actually brought the rain remains a fanciful question. Perhaps it was just some lonely person who enjoyed the solitude of a wet walk? Nobody knew for sure. Many pictures had been taken of him but they all ended up looking the same. The rain was always so hard when he walked, like looking through fogged glass.

    There he was. One hauntingly slow step at a time past my bedroom window. My window was only about twenty feet from the street but I could never get a clear view of him. I remember several nights resting my eyes having strained so hard to see some visage of the rainmaker. But there I stood at my window, hypnotized by this melancholy stranger. There were times when I wanted to run out and prove the tangibility of this being but the lightning was always so horrible too.

    Only one person claims to have seen the face of the rainmaker. Her name was Ms. Pierson. She was a kind old woman. She lived by herself the poor thing. Having lost her husband so many years back made her almost a hermit. However, she rarely ever turned down a visit from family members or friends. I visited her sometimes. I had lost my husband to a car accident the previous year and I needed someone to talk to who could understand. Conversation often turned towards the subject of the rainmaker. And she told me her secret. She said he first appeared only a few short months after her husband's death. At first she thought it was just some crazy man. But like me, she became hypnotized by him. Drawn to a window like a moth to a lamp. On one of his first journeys past her kitchen window the rain had stopped and a small part in the storm clouds brought forth a small amount of sunlight. She strained her eyes harder than normal. She dropped the glass of water she was holding and gasped. Swearing to me upon her own name, she said she saw the face of her late husband, and nothing more. The familiar face smiled softly just as the part in the clouds widened to surround him in an angelic glow. But as swiftly as he had stopped the smile faded away and the downpour soon followed.

    Ms. Pierson died last month. I mourned the loss just as her family did. And now that the rainmaker was making his way past my house I couldn't stop thinking about what she had shared with me. I pounded my fist on my dresser, ran to my front door and ran outside in the rain and the lightning bearing no thought of the danger. Stopping a few feet from the him I yelled out. I asked for his name. He gave no reply. Then I asked him about Ms. Pierson and why he always walked in the rain. My hair, my dress my whole body was soaked by this time. But I did not care. I needed to know everything about him. All I heard was the slowing pace of rain. The rainmaker raised his head as sunlight broke free from a weakening cloud. I covered my mouth in shock. The face of my husband came into light. He smiled softly just as Ms. Pierson had claimed. The sunlight surrounded his body with a heavenly aura. I could not say anything. Those few seconds seemed to last for an eternity. But the smile retracted just as the sunlight did. Turning his back to me he began to walk off. I tried to cry out, to reach for him, but the rain started up again, harder than ever before.