a piece of micro-fiction.

The Anguish of the Rain God. By Miki Byrne.


“Oh how I weep! I weep and weep. My tears fall hot and wet. They gather upon my chin. A salty beard that dries so fast it brings soreness to my face. I endure it like a penance.

My face that was so black and proud is grey with dust, blanched by fear. My tears dry in the air that was my friend. The wind blows hot. It scours the land. I see the verdant green plains crisp and dry. They shrivel before my eyes. Drought strides like a fearsome warrior across my land. I cannot make the rain.

Mother Earth is losing her cloak of clouds. The lifecycles that blossomed in the Earths beautiful turning, pause in indecision. I look down on creeks that shrink like the skin of a snake sloughed off to lie lifeless and desiccated.

I call the skies to me. I sift the wind. I breathe into the hot bowl of the creeping desert, yet, I cannot make the rain. Below me Elephant and Kudu, Impala and Oryx move in restless thirst across the land. They leap in hope. March in expectation, seeking water. Needing water. The land cracks in its discontent.

I speak to the sun and she does not answer. She sends greedy rays that lap at pools like Hyenas licking blood. The sun is now my enemy. She is ferocious. The hunter in the sky, turning her deadly incandescence on all below.

I plead with night and borrow its coolness. Holding it in my palms to wrest a few drops from its condensation. It is not enough. I cannot make the rain. All is changing. Once the elements fitted, woven like a reed basket. We worked together. We kept promises made to the land.

I speak to the moon. I take her shining beams that are so like water and wring them out. I twist them in my hands but they are dry. I weep but I cannot shed enough water for one tiny flower. I chant the old chants. No other God hears me. I dance across the sky beating the drum of sorrow. The great blue vastness mocks me as if I were an intruder.

Where is my power? I despair as my people are herded by thirst across tribal borders. I see them become outcasts begging at water-holes that belong to other tribes. They hold empty gourds to the sky and say to me “Why Mulengi? Why have you deserted us?” I hear the children cry with dust-coated tongues. It burns my heart like an embers touch. I am an empty god. Drowning but only in the thundering wave of my own despair. I am a helpless god. Feeble in my lack of strength. I twist like a fish on the hook of desperation. I raise my fisted hands in anger and scream into the parched and endless void.

I embrace the clouds. They turn from me and flee. They are coquettish maidens and will not join in union. I roar my defiance to every grain of sand, to every dry and wilted leaf. I howl down ravines seeking moisture. The wells are drying. The rivers are shallow ribbons. Rocks that once were covered, point like accusations. I am hollow. A storm without thunder. The world is broken, for I cannot make the rain.