This is an absurd story, but every memory is a story, and every story deserves to be told, to be known, to find its place in history, even if it is unorthodox or namely ridiculous. A story is an experience, a slice of human life. Not every good story has to be momentous; it doesn’t always have to carry the responsibility of being a turning point. A story is a memory, a period of time that is lived once but lives eternally in the depths of the human mind. This is a story that was born from the rain.

 

We were stranded on a boat in the middle of nowhere with no food left. Me, my best friend, and the ship’s boy were sailing to the shore to pick up some food for the crew. The sun was setting, there were bugs flying over the shallow water. Once we set foot on the island, I felt the warmth of the sand, which it had borrowed from the 6 o’clock sun. The first things we saw were a bottega and a coffee shop. The sound of the waves hitting the shore was music to our ears, the plainly beautiful sound of nature. Amidst the sound of crashing waves was the emphatic purring of a cat with snow-white feathers. For some reason my friend and I felt an inexplicable trust towards him: he was like our savior dressed in white. We took his presence as a sign and decided to follow his path as he guided us along the shore to the other side of the island. The cat left soon after we arrived. Once again, we were stranded… Until she caught our eye. 

 

She was the most beautiful woman we had ever laid eyes on, like a goddess called from the Earth, like a human that was born from nature’s own hands with eyes captured from the sea and golden hair reflecting the rays of the sun. She had a blue-green skirt, made from a myriad of trees that tried to reach the sky. She was working behind a counter in her cabin, washing dishes and reloading a pantry, concentrating on her ordinary job in contrast to her almost mythical self. She was benumbing; her presence made time stop. 

 

Soon, as the sun went down, I felt a slight pitter-patter on my skin. It was raining. 

 

The scarce drops turned into a vicious cascade of rain. The rain was the revolt of nature; the thunder was the furious awakening of the sky; the raindrops were a chaos of words, trying to form a sentence, carrying the desperate need of Earth to tell a story. We ran into the tiny cabin where the Venusian woman resided. We were soaked from head to toe. 

 

We started talking with the woman. She was special, not only because of her appearance; it was her mystical aura that did not belong to words, to sentences, to a conventional description. Though the story she told us, the story of her life was entirely mundane, built from emotions and the smell of humanity. It was the story of her escape from her abusive family; it was her escape for love. It was a story of pure love that had undermined the materialistic side of the world. It was a love story that came alive and held on to eternity with an island.  

 

Her story ended as the rain subsided. The thunder clouds went away. The snow-white cat appeared once again. He was our guide to a rain that gave birth to an encounter, to a story, to a memory.

 

Rain brought her. Rain brought the specks of humanity that I missed for so long, which I found in a divine being with a human soul. Rain brought the connection of Mother Nature with humans and their stories, their lives. Rain brought harmony. 

 

Rain is a powerful thing.