Every dawn Manko would rise, clinching on the hope of setting his sight upon dark clouds of rain; but every time he cast a look at the sky, the hot blazing sun greeted him back, mockingly.
Work was arduous. The heat was excruciating.
And Manko's health was deteriorating. His body and soul alike, were giving up. Giving in.
The village had created a reservoir nearby; but it too was scant. Now it served to irrigate the fields mostly, and quench the livestock's thirst, while it could. But Manko fetched water for them only at night, while the other inhabitants slept; if they were to catch wind of his actions, the villagers would immediately make a beeline for the buckets of water, snatching them away.
Scrambling for bare necessities had turned every sane (Earth and clay) into a savage. Such harsh were the times.
Dinner - the worst end of the week - comprised of peas and patches of bread, that had to be swallowed without a drink. And then the rest of the night was to be spent tossing and turning on a growling stomach, whispering a tearful prayer to Him, pleading to rip the sky apart. For once.
Gradually, Manko's livestock thinned. With his ailing health, it only became harder. Until one day...
He collapsed.
For the next few days, his living corpse lay heaped in bed under the naked sky, coughing out a lung. His eyes stood transfixed at the heavens above, waiting for the world to darken. It were as if he knew it would rain; as if someone had slipped him a note while everybody else looked away...
And then something happened.
His eyesight began to waver. The world blurred before him. His mind spun and he could feel his heartbeat waning. It got cold. Very cold.
He was dying. This was it.
The Angel would be flying in any moment requesting his soul. He had always wondered what it felt to die, and now he was going to experience it. He wished he could break a cry for his kin before he departed. But his dry throat wouldn't allow it. It croaked wryly and said nothing else.
His senses grew numb.
He stopped feeling his hands and feet. His vision started faltering. His thoughts stopped forming. And just as he drew his last breath...
Thunder sounded. Dense smoke descended upon the horizon, and from the midst of the thickness, a droplet of water escaped.
That plopped against Manko's lifeless body...
After which, came the rain.
*
Originally written for an English class in January 2003.
I wrote a similar thin once, except there was no rain at the end. The man dies in his wheelchair with no one around him noticing.
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Actually, in the original version, no one dies. It was a happy ending. :/
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