With our Flash Fiction Contest wrapping up next week, we thought you might need some inspiration in the form of new fiction from this year’s judge, Kathy Fish. We are huge fans of Kathy’s, so we feel especially blessed to present “Praise Rain,” and to have her as our judge. You don’t want to miss your chance to join her Fast Flash workshop, so be sure to submit before the deadline!
The morning he was born entrenched, drenched in rain. Baptized in rain. Hands, yours and mine, clenched in rain.
The fallen and the falling were rain. The haunted and the haunting, rain. Tears were rain but they were clichés, unworthy of rain. All, for centuries, thirsty for rain. Kings and queens and emperors, rain. The dry and salted earth begging for rain. Faces upturned to rain. Praise rain. Bodies-in-need rain. Bodies that form, are born, and fuck in rain. Vows-under-a-canopy rain. Drunk, dancing rain. The morning he was born entrenched, drenched in rain. Baptized in rain. Hands, yours and mine, clenched in rain.
There was a boy whose eyes and ears and arms and legs and spit and snot and tongue were rain. There was a boy who caught frogs and toads and crawdads and released them into the pond pin-pricked by rain. There was a boy who woke in the night from terrors and we held him close under a down blanket and taught him to be comforted by rain.