Birds
of the Rain
a children's story, June 26, 1996
Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a land
where only birds and animals lived. The air was fresh and
free, so free that you could dance in the soft grass under
the warming sun and twirl around and around until you became
dizzy; but then the grass beneath you would be so soft and
snug, all you would want to do would be to let yourself
rest down against it. The birds sang so clearly from the
faraway trees that the sound was just like the small pipings
of flutes carried along by the gentle wafts of wind. The
trees rose up so high and tall that if you stood under them,
their graceful, curving arms would seem to hold you; even
if you were standing far below on the leafy carpet. The
ground ran on forever, as far as your eye could see, never
stopping until the point came where the faint outline of
distant trees met with the calm, blue sky.
In this wonderful land, there was a bird.
Now this bird wasn't any ordinary bird. He was a very
small bird with dusty brown feathers like those on a
feather duster, and he had a small white spot on the
end of his tail like a cottonball; yes, he did. All
the other birds were almost the same, but he belonged
to his mommy and his daddy and lived in the grass, far
from the forest, and that made him special. He was really
special, because he was the only bird like himself.
That morning, Bird opened his eyes and
stretched his wings wide to catch the fresh morning
wind. His mommy and daddy had gone out for the morning
to get breakfast, so Bird got up on his small, stout
feet. He began to tiptoe around the soft, white feathers
he slept on when he went to bed in his straw nest last
night. All around him were the tall, golden blades of
grass, and he looked upward just in time to see the
tips of the grass blaze red with the rays of the early
morning sun. He knew that soon his mommy and daddy would
be back, so he sat down in his nest and began to sing
a sweet tune. Would you like to know what he sang? Bird
tweeted as he could with his tiny bird's tweet and sang
about his mommy and daddy. He knew that somewhere across
the great meadow, far away in the forest, they could
hear him and come back to tell him how proud of him
they were for his song. His tiny song was the best it
could be, flowing along as sweet as the wind.
After he finished his song, Bird felt a
small itch on his back and turned all the way around
so he could scratch it. The straw crackled underneath
him as he reached with his pebble-like beak and scratched
his baby bird feathers until it felt better. But when
he began to turn around, he just happened to catch in
the corner of his golden eye something white and very
high in the sky.
It stood there almost like a hole in the
velvety blue sky, wispy and fringy and round like a
ball. Airy it was, pure as the air; rounded, unbounded,
not moving much anywhere. From so far above, she called
all the way down to him and said, "Hello!"
Bird sat amazed. "Hello to you!"
It was Cloud. Bird had never seen her before,
but she was beautiful. She shined white with all the
colors of the sun, secretly dancing above Wind's cheerful
hands before Bird had seen her. "What are you?"
Bird seemed surprised because he thought
everyone knew that he was a bird. "I am a bird,"
he tweeted in his tiny bird's voice.
Cloud moved down just a tiny bit closer
to get a closer look. "What is a bird?"
Dancing around the down-layered nest, holding
up his wings, Bird told Cloud, "I am a bird. Birds
have two feet and two wings; we live by the grass, we
tweet and we sing. If I may ask, where are your feet
and your wings?"
Cloud looked around at herself. "My
feet and my wings, I have none, for the Wind takes me
anywhere under the sun."
Bird looked up high at Cloud and saw her
feathery shape move along slowly in the sky. How light
she seemed to be as she flew! Bird wanted to feel free
like Cloud, but to do so, he had to be able to fly.
Now, in that time, birds had wings but no one knew why
they had them. Most of the time everyone used them like
arms to give shade, and sometimes they hopped about
with their wings to soften their falls back to the ground.
But no one could fly, and no one thought about flying.
He looked up at her and saw that there
were no other clouds in the sky but her. "Cloud,
are you lonely?"
She answered him as only a cloud could,
"Very lonely. My mommy and daddy live very far
away, and I am all alone. What else can I say? I am
sad."
Bird felt sorry for her and wanted to be
her friend. If only he could fly, they could play together
in the sky. Cloud had no friends to play with, and he
would have liked very much to play with her. "Where
are your mommy and daddy?"
"My mommy and daddy live far, far
away," she said, sadly. "My mommy is Water.
She lives in the ocean, too far away to see. My daddy
is Storm Cloud, as great as can be. They are really
important to everybody, so most of the time they are
busy. That is why I am so lonely."
Bird listened to Cloud. "I will be
your friend," he told her.
Cloud felt happier. Her bright white skirts
beamed with light as she twirled around herself and
smiled. "Thank you, Bird. Now I don't feel as lonely
anymore. But only if you could fly, we could play together
in the sky."
"I don't know how to fly, Cloud,"
he told her. He began to hop around the nest, tweeting
as he tried to show her. "But I do want to learn
how to, if I could try."
Cloud felt Wind blow under her breezily
as she thought. She came up with an idea and told Bird
that maybe her cousin Wind could help him learn to fly.
Wind was good at making things blow, but he was often
poor in other things. No one could tell what he was
planning to do next. Sometimes he would blow breezes
and sometimes he would make strong winds that would
shake the trees and howl through the branches. No one
could tell. But it just so happened that at that very
moment, Wind laid back in that huge, great sky and spread
his arms out, pushing Cloud away from Bird.
Bird watched her more closely as she began
to blow farther away from him. "Cloud, where are
you going?" he asked her.
Cloud looked sad. Her bright, cheerful
radiance began to grow just a shade dimmer as she moved
away. "I have to go. My daddy and mommy are calling
me." Her wispy edges began to trail back away from
the tips of the grass as Bird watched from his straw
nest. The sky began to grow darker as the sun ran away
from Wind, knowing that along with Wind came Storm Cloud.
The sun lazily disappeared behind the first clouds as
he sat back to take a rest from all that early morning
shining, happily thanking Storm Cloud as he rumbled
back to answer him.
Bird watched as Storm Cloud moved closer,
pushed by Wind and followed by Water. Cloud began to
grow even more sad because she did not want to leave
Bird, and her daddy knew that she had made a friend.
But they could not stop, because Wind kept pushing them
away from Bird. Cloud called out to Bird, "Bird!
Bird! Fly! Catch the wind and fly up to me!"
Bird reached up as high as he could and
hopped up and down, back and forth, and all around,
trying to catch Wind so he could ride on his back. But
Wind was not there yet. Then, all so suddenly, a strong
breeze swooped down from above and picked up Bird, floating
him on a waft of air until he rose above the grass and
saw for the first time the world around him, the trees
in the distance from where he had heard the other birds
sing. He now knew how to fly.
Storm Cloud began to rumble and growl noisily,
telling Wind to stop blowing so that Bird could catch
up with Cloud. Bird flew as fast and as hard as he could,
soon becoming tired, never having flown before in his
life. Wind was not kind to him, twisting the air around
him so that he tumbled around in the sky. Cloud saw
this, and not being able to do anything, she began to
cry. Her huge, clear eyes made so many tears that it
rained upon the land below, and on Bird, who still kept
on flying.
Wind began to roar with laughter, watching
Bird tumble about with air. He whispered along the ground,
telling everyone to look up to the sky. He swooped between
the trees until everyone had their eyes on him, and
roared again. But Storm Cloud was not happy. Wind was
blowing Cloud further and further away, and he became
upset. Storm Cloud rose up above Wind, towering high
above in the sky and sent his heavy arms around Wind.
"You should not blow like this, Wind. It is morning,
and the sun has already gone."
Wind blew so hard that he couldn't stop
to listen to Storm Cloud and became angry with him.
Wind rushed at Storm Cloud, and pushed him down in the
sky. Bird, who had still kept on flying, saw Cloud look
back at him before she went to join her daddy. Still
crying, Cloud waved to Bird as Storm Cloud opened his
arms and hugged her. Bird flapped down and landed back
in his nest, watching Wind and Storm Cloud tumble about
in the sky, howling, rumbling, and screaming across
the land. They threw lightning at each other and roared
whenever the lightning missed the other and hit the
ground instead. Thunder crashed everywhere. But still,
from somewhere below them, Cloud silently cried tears
of rain down on the grass and trees of the land. She
was sad that Bird was gone. They both missed each other.
Bird watched them from his nest until it was all over,
and Wind began to blow away.
That is why birds never fly during the
rain. They think that if they do, Wind will see them
again. And it always rains whenever Storm Cloud and
Water meet each other. Bird never knew why, but he always
thought it was because Cloud was so happy to see her
mommy and daddy again that she cried, and cried, and
cried. Bird and all the birds after him never forgot
Cloud after that day. Some birds fly so high in the
sky that they sometimes seem to stand there, gliding
on the wind and trying to get closer to the clouds every
day. But not all birds fly. There were birds who were
scared of the sky, and never used their wings. They
still can't fly.
All birds like Bird who live in the
grass are still the same. When they begin to fly, they
fly straight up, always looking up to the clouds. That
is why birds fly. There are many different clouds in
the sky, but all birds hope that one day they will meet
the one Cloud who had made a friendship between the
birds and the rain.
The End
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