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RHAPSODY IN RAIN

Connie Shankle

Children are odd little creatures. Many people love them, some
people find their habits disgusting, and some people are even afraid
of them. These little people who are found in all corners of the
earth do have strange ways. There are some children who have to be
amused, led around, and talked to constantly, but then there are some
independent souls who find delight in simply exploring this world
all by themselves. Sometimes these tiny individuals play in cracks
and crevices which appear dangerous and impossible to enter; some-
times they wander for hours in open fields or up and down crowded
city blocks. Will they get lost, become afraid, be hurt? These adven-
turesome little bits of humanity never give thought to things like
this, for to them there is just that something somewhere that protects
them wherever they choose to roam and in whatever they choose to do.

Having once been a child, I sometimes think of this and remem-
ber a few of my adventures, one in particular, because it was then

I first discovered the world of rain.
From the time I was old enough to realize that rain was wet, I

used to pull myself up to the window seat on rainy days and gaze at
those torrents of rain streaming down the cold window panes. I
stared up at the jagged streaks of lightning as if I were defying them
to strike me. I marveled at the deafening bursts of thunder as I
searched the blackened skies for their hidden source.

I soon discovered that such tempests frightened most of the people
and animals in my small realm of acquaintances. Even the flowers
in the garden folded their petals and bent their heads to the ground.
Since most of the storms I witnessed occurred in the afternoon, my
mother was usually in bed. And everyone else? Well, how was I to
know where people went during storms? There certainly wasn't any-
one outside. Consequently I was left alone. After many sessions of
watching I finally decided to investigate one of these downpours.

Rain, which wasn't really wet to me, fell on my hands and face
as I slipped across the soggy grass in my bare feet. Everything seemed
so vivid and absorbed by the rain, that my small self was enchanted
by this beauty which I could not see but only know and feel. I ran
aimlessly down a muddy lane, through a dripping confusion of grass
and trees; I saw the nervous lightning, heard the crashes of thunder,

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