Once upon a time, in a land long since lost beneath memories born and born again, there was a great drought. Recorded history shows no sign of the scarring, and nature will not present the long healed wounds, for they cannot remember what never was.
There was a drought, but only in the opinion of a localized group of malcontents. They felt the rain, and danced as the storms fed their fertile lands, but never did they come to stare upon the “Finals Storm”, a revered orgy of sky poured water, growth and celebration which enveloped precisely one tract of land exactly once every course of seasons.
If summer slipped past, and arrived at your door once more, and no “Finals Storm” had embraced your land, the heat came with a slight downward head tilt, minor furrowing of the brow, and dreams of next year erased those dismissed from that before.
In the eyes of a single man, who’s story I tell here (a single man that was also many), who failed to bear witness to that perfect yearly storm, who’s head fell lower, who’s brow furrowed just a little more with each coming summer, this time was labeled the most severe drought mankind had ever known.
He took to preaching his distaste to any and all who would listen, while standing on plush stages straddling ripe crops and blossoming vegetation, and cursing the fickle sky who dared not share such paradise, while damning the sun who had the audacity to shed its light in opposition, or impediment of what he saw as “The” storm strolling just beyond the horizon. In the rains, in the heat, in the embarrassment of what so many would call opulent riches, he screamed his message of dissatisfaction over a full belly and lush lands.
When, one day, his words rang out no more. Like white noise or static interference suddenly quiet, the people turned their heads and shrugged in unison at the change. In the silence, there came the sound of a hammer to wood, followed by brief silence, followed by the hammer calling out again, like a woodpecker serenading a deaf and uncaring forest.
One day, another happened across the man, who now stood close to thirty feet above the ground.
“What are you doing there, sir?” the onlooker asked.
“I’ve taken to action. Before the next “Finals Storm” passes us by, I will have built a pillar and ascended its back to stand before the sun, where I will pierce its fiery skin and clear the last obstacle between “The” storm and here.”
With a slight chuckle, the onlooker waved and went on his way. He spread the word of the man’s plight, but none gave it much thought or remained awake at night.
Days passed. Rain came and went. Season’s changed, and like a house of cards the man’s pillar grew taller and taller as the townsfolk paid him no mind, and lent him no ear. From high above his rants would float down like whispered tears to disappear without heed into the dirt.
Then one day much as that day months before, the monotonous sounds of his incessant ranting and endless hammering came to a sudden halt. Once again, those still tethered to the ground turned in a quiet questioning that resolved itself in a not so subtle shrug.
While, in the near distance and only moments before, the man had become so enthralled with his climb that he’d carelessly placed his foot where a foot could not be held. He stopped his tirade mid-sentence and released the hammer from his hands, where it floated in freefall at his side. Like a split second drum roll in a desolate auditorium, his day’s supply of wood, hammer and body crashed to the ground from a great height, but having tuned out there came only that shared shrug in response from his fellow townsfolk.
They did not investigate, did not panic. Did not even know of the loss they’d incurred. Instead, they went about their daily routines until that fateful day when the “Finals Storm” did find them in its path.
There, as they celebrated and danced through the nights, they remembered the man who could not share in their joy, as he’d been bathed and laid to rest in his hate so long ago. With a casual shrug, the thought, the memory passed.
Moral: Those that embrace their anger and hate, fail to share the happiness and find no joy in the journey there…if they stay long enough to make it there at all.
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