The Stream, a black CATastrophy Short Story

Her grandmother’s chair creaked and groaned as she sat on the front porch for a long overdue break. The sky grew darker, indicating a storm was heading her direction. An imminent disturbance that only reminded her of the tempest twisting and blustering in her heavy heart.

The wind heaved fiercely from the west, shaking the lilac bushes by the stream that ran through her yard, raging this way and that. She closed her eyes and wondered at the power of the wind and how it blew her carefully fastened hair across her face like wild talons threatening to claw at her careworn eyes.

Thunder cracked and rolled across the heavens but she wasn’t startled. Instead, she smiled with relief as the temperature dropped ten degrees. The first fat drops splattered across the front of the porch, darkening the gray, peeling paint. It was only moments before the tumultuous wind blew the rain right across her lap.

Taking a deep breath and holding it, she thought perhaps there was nothing as good as the smell of a summer rain. Yet, deep down, she knew it wasn’t true what they said about the rain. It didn’t wash away all the dirt. Instead, it left puddles and mud. And that deceivingly sweet, earthy smell.

Her grandmother’s chair continued its creaking and groaning although she had risen from it. She turned toward the stream now, once again closing her eyes against it all. Could she change what the rain really did? If she imagined hard enough, she might picture everything much better than it really was.

“I watched the stream turn into a waterfall, and then the water began to rise,” she murmured to no one.

In that moment, there were no puddles, no mud. Instead, she was engulfed in the beautiful, water as it flew over the waterfall into the rising depths surrounding her. She fell back, letting it bury her, filling her nostrils and mouth.

At last, she was clean.

Thank you for reading! I wrote this as a response to the black CATastrophy Writing Prompt 08.