Rain Best Write Claire Pryor
The rain poured down, warm and soothing. My arms reached upward, my face tilted towards the sky. The day had finally come, and we were saved. For four miserable weeks and one day we had suffered the terrible drought. All our rich crops, potatoes and carrots and lettuce, had dried and crumbled into meaningless, profitless, dirt that we had been forced to eat. But that was not the worst of it. Abuelo, my only source of comfort in this miserable world, had collapsed from heat and lack of water, his chapped lips muttering the same thing over and over. El agua, el agua. Water, water. I, with my heat-dulled eyes red and stinging, had run from the room, unable to see any more. I had fallen, stumbling, onto what used to be our fields, crying, refusing to believe what I already knew. My mother tried to comfort me, murmuring that it was his time to go and God would take better care of him than we could. It had no effect, except to make me cry harder. I said nothing, but in my heart I wailed, But we need him much more than God does! My mother must have guessed my thoughts, for she sadly tousled my hair and left me alone. Now I stood here, watching the beautiful orangey-pink sun slowly slide behind the horizon line. As the rain pattered onto my head, my tears mixed with the rain on my face, sliding and slowly falling down into the damp, cracked, ground. I wish
now that I could only feel as the ground feels, wonderfully relieved for the rain and not a care for a dead Abuelo. I ve never liked the ranch. Of course, when you live on a ranch, you cannot hate it, but you cannot love it either. I am not a farm boy, like my father. My father has been a farm boy since the day he was born. He loves the ranch with all of his heart and refuses to believe we could be happier anywhere else. My friend Roberto is also a farm boy. He is a good friend, but whenever I talk about my imagined adventures elsewhere, he is confused. Why not just stay on the farm, Miguel? There is much to do on the farm. Abuelo was the only one I knew who was like me. That is why I loved him so much. He and I longed for adventures together, talked about the wonders of America together, planned our escapes from the farm that would never happen together. We were one, Abuelito and I. One in our desire to go someplace new, see someplace different, to know America before we died. But now he was gone, and his dreams would never come true. Would the same thing happen to me? Would I die here also, a trapped soul caged in a place I didn t belong? It was pitiful. Pitiful to think of me, with all my hopes and dreams, living out my whole life here, trapped like a bird in a cage. Suddenly, something began to wake inside me. A terrible monster whose rage was too powerful to be
stopped by anything. A monster of freedom. Its voice drowned out all my other thoughts, all my sense, telling me to run, to escape, to get away from the ranch as quickly as possible. But the monster was not stupid. It knew I had to wait to get my chance at freedom, wait for the perfect time to run. Be ready. The monster growled. Be ready when it is time to leave. I gulped, nodded. I would be ready. I, Miguel Aridonto, would have my one chance of freedom. I would free myself. But time passed, and the time never came. I waited, tense, for the moment, but my mother had enlisted my family to keep me occupied always, so I would not have time to mourn Abuelo. In truth, she meant it to be a kind gesture, but it saddened me further. Would I ever be able to take my own destiny in my hands and run, run as fast as I could to America? Would I ever be able to honor Abuelo the way I knew he d want, by taking his body and burying it in America? The way things were going, it seemed not. Finally, it came time for Abuelo s funeral. I had wanted to bury him at least in the next town, so he could explore in his death. But mother insisted that he would have wanted to be buried on the farm, though I knew differently. In our household, though, what mother says goes. So I meekly agreed with her. On the day of the funeral, mother insisted that we all dress up in our finest clothes, even though nobody was coming except for an old, half-soused old man who had known Abuelo and liked to pretend he had been good friends with him. Even
though I knew Abuelo would have preferred us to wear our farm clothes, I changed into the stiff, stuffy suit filled with mothballs I refused to wear unless I absolutely had to. Then, uncomfortable and annoyed, I climbed into our rickety old Toyota pickup. Papa pushed the key in, and with a long, throaty wheeze, the engine coughed and sputtered out. Papa tried aga9n and again, until finally the motor caught and roared to life. Off we went. When we got to the very outreaches of our farm, papa wound down the engine and we stopped. My brother Alejandro and papa had ventured out in the blistering heat last afternoon and dug Abuelito s grave so mother and the girls would not have to wait while we dug now. Abuelito s body was loaded into the back of the truck, and papa heaved him up and walked over to the grave. Abuelito s body was so light from hunger and thirst that he hardly weighed anything, but Alejandro rushed to help him anyways. I knew I should be feeling terrible, but strangely all emotion had left me. I was just a scarecrow remarkably resembling a human, dead of emotion and all feeling. I stood and watched, silently, emotionless, as they lowered Abuelito s body into the grave all but hidden by our withered crops. Papa said a prayer, his husky voice chanting: Dear God, protect and keep this loyal man and let him live in eternal happiness by your side. Let him live the life he truly wanted to live and give him eternal peace until we join him. Amen. Then
mama sang, a beautiful warbling song that called out to everything in sight, joyful yet sad, strong and clear, blending with the birdsong. Birdsong! How could birds be singing at a time like this? And suddenly, emotion flooded me and I began to weep. My tears flooded the ground and I collapsed crying. My mother pulled me close and I rested my head on her shoulder. Her warm, comforting body held me close. It gave me new strength and courage. It gave me guilt of having to leave without saying goodbye. But it gave me the power to do what I knew was right. I braced myself and got ready to run. To Be Continued