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The story of Rain

 

Once upon a time, there was a creature with big, blue eyes that could see the world. It had wings as thin as
the thinnest of clingwrap, and as shimmering as if they were made of the finest of rainy weather. The creature, who
lived on a cloud, decided one day to visit earth. He wanted to find himself a friend, since a cloud can be a very
lonely place; cold and soft as oblivion itself, for creatures with silver wings.

So the creature wandered down the rainbow, over mountains and forests, lakes, bogs and endless oceans. He searched
in the deepest ponds, under the smallest rocks, behind every trembling bush, in every meagre cabin and in all the
glorious castles he passed, though they were not that many. The creature walked several turns about the earth, but
everyone he met wanted to change him into some kind of human; transform him, lock him and put him out, cut his eyes and
his glitter wings, capture his wild dreams in a jar and tend his foreign language. The creature could not stand
it ; he was a cloud creature and the clouds are used to flying wherever they please.


So he walked on, and on. He became very, very tired and there was nothing but concrete and asphalt and people who
stared stragely at him where he walked. But he was exhausted now. He laid down in the middle of the road and
waited. He had to wait for a very long time, because the evening was late and most of the people has already fallen
asleep. But finally, a car came driving. It was a father on his way home with his children to their mother, because
he was only a father on the weekends and was not allowed to keep them longer than that.

- Daddy, daddy, what's that? the youngest child suddenly cried out. The father stopped the car and stepped out to
have a look at the creature, who was so exhausted that he did not even object when the father took him in his arms
and carried him to the car. It was quickly done, because the creature was a cloud creature after all, and was
for that reason very light.

The youngest child stared in amazement at the creature and sucked her thumb with a little clicking sound. The middle
child was absolutely sure that everything with wings was either birds or prehistoric lizards, and because he knew
how birds used to act, he pressed againt the car door to be able to get out as quickly as possible if the creature
suddenly decided to get hungry. The eldest child was asleep and did not know anything until she opened her eyes and
found herself in a position between her little brother and a wing that sparkled of rain and dust from the long walk,
the all too long walk. She withdrew in disgust in her seat.

 

When the car finally reached the mother's modern house, the creature had fallen asleep. The father carried him into
the house and laid him down upon the kitchen sofa, which the mother had bought for 499 crowns at IKEA. The youngest
child poked the creature's wings, in humble admiration, but found them wicked and nasty and hid underneath the
table. The middle child was already sitting there; the eldest child had locked herself into the bathroom and the
mother thought the creature was unpleasant and wrong for not obeying the rules and for not being human as the rest
of them, and especially because it ruined her perfectly good kitchen sofa. The father thought, as he always did,
that the mother blew the whole thing out of proportion, and the mother thought that the father could sod off and the
father did the best he could but ended up, as usually, in his own apartment in the other end of the city.

Despite the protests, the creature stayed in the mother's freshly scrubbed house. The two youngest children kept
their distance, the mother cleaned frantically and tried to resist the urge to cut the creature's silver wings off while he
was asleep, and the eldest daughter was disgusted to have a creature in her kitchen, in her house, underneath her
own, safe roof.

 

But even this girl had to obey the unspoken rules of the sagas. Against her will, she fell in love with the creature
because this is a saga, where everything is supposed to be happy and joyful, at least on the outside. But the creature
could not stand the mother, who wanted to change him, and the children, who were disgusted by his mere presence. So
one night, he just simply walked out of the house, and because he was a cloud creature, he was as free as the birds
and never had to obey any rules or laws.

So once again, he wandered lonely. He went towards the bridge of the rainbow; he wanted to return to his soft,
silent cloud. But the girl knew all this. Half her heart still loved the creature, and the other half hated him
and little difference seperated those two. So she hurried after him, into forests and oceans, through mountains
and valleys with small brooks that she did not even notice, she ran past houses and ramshackled barns and did not
stop until she reached the bridge of the rainbow.


There, she took a pair of scissors and cut the rainbow from its golden holds. She took the little pot of gold
from the end of the rainbow, and began to walk her way back. The pot was beautiful and concrete, and had no wings
made of rainfall, which the girl thought was the best thing about it. When the creature reached the strongholds, the
girl was already half way home, and the end of the rainbow fluttered annoyingly in the wind, high above the creature's
head, unreachable. Because you can not fly with wings as thin as silk paper on this earth.

So the creature screamed, cried silver tears from his big, beautiful eyes, and continued his quest, yet another
turn about the earth. He walked and walked and the girl waited and waited to one morning find a pair of torn, dusty
rain wings on the stairs outside her mother's clinically clean IKEA-house, next to a pair of big, beautiful, but
closed and scratched eyes. The creature will leave them there and walk, with heavy steps, turn after turn about the
earth and he will become more human for every mile he walks. He is looking for a friend.

 

The end

 

Locations:

Picture 1-14, 19 = Gåreström och skog (The industrial lake and forest)

Picture 15-17 = Okänd, övergiven fabrik (Unknown abandoned factory)

Picture 18 - Jordkällare i berget (A rock cellar)

Picture 20 = Den gamla kyrkogården (The old cemetary)

Picture 21 = Gnosjö kyrka (Gnosjö church)

Picture 22, 23, 25, 26, 27 = Utanför den gamla kyrkogården (Outside the old cemetary)

Picture 24, 28 = Kyrkvägen (The church road)

 

"The story of Rain" is written by Tahariel and is published in swedish here