It All Began With Rain

The corners of my mouth lifted into a small smile as I traced the dust on the old wooden floorboards with my finger. Duke had just said something funny, and it sent Renee into peals of laughter, leaning back and filling the entire attic with her energy. Smirking, Duke continued his joke and Renee continued to smile winningly and fawn over Duke, Duke, Duke. Bom sat cross-legged across from me, and we gave each other a knowing glance. He stood up, brushing the grime off of his jeans, and turned towards a corner of the attic. Pushing myself up, I followed him over to the musty corner. We began sifting through old boxes, sputtering when our mouths ran into delicate cobwebs. I sneezed from the dust, turning away and hating the taunting tingle in my nose. When I'd returned to face Bom, he was holding an old-fashioned typewriter covered in the same dusty covering as the rest of the attic. I marveled at it and flashed Bom a wide grin. He beamed back at me and we carried it back over to Duke and Renee, who immediately stopped their conversation once they spotted our find.

"A typewriter?" Renee gasped, the creative fire in her eyes alighting. I couldn't keep myself from smiling triumphantly and nodded in response. Even Duke looked awed. Scooting over and brushing the layers of dust that had settled over the typewriter, Renee took a deep breath in and smelled the machine. Out of all of us, Renee was by far the best writer. She captured moments that none of us were able to articulate but so clearly could envision, and when she penned down a character, we felt their presence in the room with us, we somehow knew them in and out within a few simple sentences. The rest of us quietly idolized Renee and how she could pluck moving stories from the air like one scoops a rock out of a shallow creek. We all felt like we were trying to catch minnows, darting much too fast and feeling them slip through our fingers.

Renee stopped breathing deeply. "Hold up," she nearly yelled, so filled with excitement that every word out of her seemed like an exclamation point. "I have an idea! Why don't we do a collective story?" she proposed. Duke nearly leapt forwards in his eagerness, and nodded so hard I thought his head might come right off his shoulders. Renee raised her eyebrows questioningly at Bom and I, and we both nodded taciturnly. I was never one for many words, and neither was Bom. Oftentimes, we would sit for hours by a riverbank, just laying together on the sweet grass and staring up at the endless expanse of sky, follow the clouds, or notice the leaves whose veins seemed to glow in the sunlight. I snapped out of the thought and returned to the attic, where Renee began explaining, "Okay. So, we're just gonna leave the typewriter here. Then, someone's gonna sneak up and just type something, a sentence or two. Make sure nobody else knows you're up here. Slowly, we'll get sentence after sentence of wonderfully combined material, and then boom! Greatness! Victory! A story!" she exclaimed. Questions being formulating in my mind but Renee put her hand on my knee, sensing my anxiety, and her touch stilled my thoughts. That was another reason I liked being around Renee and Bom: they could calm me. Duke, not so much. But, Renee and Bom could take me out of the whirlwind that my mind created, just pluck me out of the storm and into safety. "Okay," I agreed, my slightly raspy voice contrasting with Renee's birdsong-like lilt.

"Good!" Renee clapped her hands together, shifting the typewriter over to a corner and inserting a piece of paper into the slot. "Well, I guess we'll all go now! Writers adjourned!" With a giddy giggle, she bounced down the stairs and we followed. Saying goodbye, we walked back to our separate homes. Hands shoved into my leather jacket, I felt my sneakers slap against the pavement. It was not yet sunset, but nearly so, and the canvas of night had been filled with a comforting blue. I continued home, breathing in the clatter of kitchen pans, the faraway barking of a dog, probably Milo's, the insistent chirping of insects, and the quiet buzz of televisions. About halfway home, I reached a stop sign and twirled around it, redirecting myself back to the Big Brain, as we dubbed it. The writing house wasn't any of ours, but instead an old house of Bom's that his neglectful grandparents had left him before they'd jumped on a plane to Florida. He lived with a foster family now, but the house was still his, and we met there every day to write, read, or talk. I checked my surroundings and strolled quietly back, craning my head around streets to see if Duke, Bom, or Renee had had the same thought and doubled back as well.

When I was within a few houses of the Big Brain, I stepped into the knee-high grass and traveled round to the back of the house, opening the porch door with a wince as its hinges squealed for mercy. I lightly ascended the stairs, remembering to skip the fourth and eleventh step, and crawled into the attic. I hadn't realized, but my heart had been beating fast and my hands were clenched, the knuckles turning white. Forcing myself to relax muscle by muscle, I inched over to the typewriter. To my surprise, there was already a sentence written: "It all began with rain." I typed carefully afterwards, "Thunder struck and lightning rumbled, and the bright blue grass rustled under a glowing green sky." I smiled to myself and carefully left the attic, making sure not to leave any traces of myself behind that hadn't been there before, even though I knew I was being overly cautious. As I walked home, it began to rain. With a loud crack, I heard thunder clap. Pulling my leather jacket over my head, I ran home.

The next morning, I yawned awake and stayed in bed for a few blissful seconds before a loud, "FLO!" wrenched me off of the comfortable mattress. Smelling smoke from the kitchen, I saw that Milo was frantically trying to make breakfast. Flour covered the counter and his apron, an eggshell laid teetering at the edge of the stove, a pan full of eggs nervously balanced in his hand, a few strips of undercooked bacon limply flopped on a paper towel, and the blackened toast stood smoking in the toaster. "HELP!" he shouted, his eyes wide. "FLO!" he hollered again. I blinked slowly but walked quickly towards the pantry, putting and tying my apron on with practiced ease. Within a few minutes, I'd set everything back and made breakfast. "Next time, Milo, just leave the meals to me." I snorted. His mouth full, Milo attempted a response but I waited until he had swallowed. "Yeah, but Mom left early today and I woke up and you hadn't made it yet." he griped. I gave his head a little poke. "Just wake me up next time, you little bug." I said. He flashed me a smile and continued to dig into his breakfast.

Slowly tucking into mine, I enjoyed breakfast and gave my pieces of bacon to Milo, who accepted them greedily. His name was a nickname for Milan, mine short for Florence. Mom worked long hours and Dad was somewhere in Canada trying his luck at a business that we all knew was just an excuse. They'd met in Italy (hence the names), but it had been an ill-fated romance ending up with two children they weren't ready to handle. Mom had adapted, learned to work hard, how to suffer for her children. Dad had just... well, Dad had just tried to get away from us at every chance he got. He only ever returned for Christmas, and usually he was drunk. It had been Milo and me against everyone else until I'd met Renee, who'd taken an unexpected liking to me and then introduced me to the Duke and Bom. Milo had met a few friends roller-blading, and soon, we'd both found people outside of our family, which wasn't really a family anyways. More like a few people tethered together because genetics willed it so.

Milo poked my arm. "Whatcha starin at, Flo?" he asked. I looked back at him and took a bite of my toast. "Ah, nothing. How was the day at the skate park yesterday?" I inquired. I'd come home late from Big Brain and he'd been fast asleep. His eyes brightened and he launched into a long story about outmaneuvering an older boy who'd laughed at him. While listening, I glanced outside. Confused, I squinted and walked to the window. "Hold on, Milo. I'm real glad you showed that Tim boy who's boss, but... has the grass always been blue?!" Shocked, I turned back to Milo, who was sitting at the table like nothing new had happened. I peered up at the sky. It was green. "Milo!" I exclaimed. He looked at me funnily. "That's not the best joke you've come up with, Flo," he told me, acting like a comedy critic. "I know you like the sky and you spend hours just lookin up at that thing, but yeah, shouldn't you know that it's always been green?" I stared at him, not saying anything. The sky - green? The grass - blue? Suddenly, I remembered the sentence I had typed yesterday, and alarm bells began ringing in my mind. "Bye, Milo, don't get hurt, come back before 8!" I shouted, grabbing a red leather jacket off the hook and racing off towards Big Brain. Milo stood confused in the doorway but shrugged and returned to eating his breakfast.

The summer heat beat down on my back as I tore through lawns of blue, blue grass. I pinched myself, slapped my face, and touched the grass just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. I arrived at Big Brain and scrambled up to the attic, bursting into it with fear written across my forehead. Everyone else was already there. "Green sky? Blue grass? Does this sound strange to you guys?!" I nearly screamed. They all nodded back.

"And nobody else thinks so," Bom whispered.

"Okay, okay, guys, I have to confess," I started. "I wrote--"

"No, I have to." Renee interrupted. "I wrote--"

"I wrote something too!" Duke interjected.

We all looked at Bom. He nodded. "Me too."

Looks of alarm bounced across the room, and nervousness coursed through my body like blood. I began breathing quicker, and an expression of absolute dread filled my features. My head felt light, and I felt disconnected from the world. Renee and Bom took my hands and slowly, I returned and settled down, my jitters still there but not controlling me anymore.

Renee looked around. "Guys, what did we write?" She pulled the paper from out of the typewriter, sinking feelings forming now that we realized that every sentence would come true. Renee swallowed and began reading,

It all began with rain. Thunder struck and lightning rumbled, and the bright blue grass rustled under a glowing green sky.

"That was me," I said. Duke nodded and added, "The next one's me."

Mr. Brennan woke up, stretching, and took some coffee with his milk and sugar.

Bom commented, "That was pretty good, Duke." Duke laughed nervously, then asked, "Does that mean there's a Mr. Brennan out there who just did that?"

I nodded. "Probably."

Today was the day he was going to turn everything upside down, sideways, even inside out maybe... after all, he was a Lemon Trader. He traveled down to the Center of Gravity and went about business as usual and at exactly noon, he planned to turn off everything that kept the world going round, and then turn them all on one by one until he saw a world he liked.

We looked around at each other. "Who was that?" Renee asked. Duke, Bom, and I all shook are heads. "Oh come on, guys," Renee implored, "It wasn't me, I wrote the next two sentences." Renee paused but none of us said anything. Huffing, she continued:

However, the all-powerful Lemon Traders caught wind of his chaos-inducing plans and began to formulate two menacing squads filled with their best agents to intercept Mr. Brennan. The Lemon Squads marched down the humble town of Rhine, disrupting the usual quiet and peace of the otherwise normal suburban neighborhood. Before 9 o'clock, the squads had dragged Mr. Brennan out of his house, his wife and children screaming, pleading, begging for forgiveness in the doorway. The neighbors did nothing except watch as the events unfolded. Mr. Brennan was forced onto his knees, but he had a wild spark in his eye.

"Okay, who was that?" Renee asked. "I wrote all the way until squad formulation part." We all shook our heads again, but I could almost hear the constant step of marching soldiers in my head. "Okay, well some brilliant mind decided to put this dystopian reality right into our town, Rhine!" she said, clearly irritated. All of us were on edge when suddenly, a shriek sounded from outside. We scrambled over to the window and saw a man being dragged outside by burly men all dressed in lemon uniforms. A woman and two small children stood wailing in the house, but they dared not go any farther towards the men in yellow. We looked frantically at each other - that was Mr. Brennan. Indeed, the figure being dragged out laughed maniacally and seemed to froth at the mouth. One of the Lemon soldiers looked up, and caught my eye. I gasped and ducked quickly out of sight. Shouting ensued and a group of the Lemon Squad began to go towards Big Brain.

"Guys!" I forcefully whispered. "They're coming for me!"

Renee looked at me dismissively. "Don't be absurd, Flo. They're not coming for you." She returned to the story, scanning over the next few sentences. With pure horror contorting her features, she turned to me.

"FLO THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU" she screamed.

I whipped around, panicked, to face Duke and Bom. "What do I do?" I hissed. Bom, taken aback, said, "Don't look at me." I turned to Duke. Fear in his eyes, he said, "That window opens up onto the roof. The houses are close enough to jump from roof to roof." My nostrils flaring and chest heaving, I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. Fumbling, my fingers slipped on the latch as I loosened it and I let out a frightened noise.

Renee, who had now splayed herself against the wall and was speed-reading, turned to Duke and Bom. "We've gotta go too!!" she screeched. I pushed open the window and started climbing onto the tiles above. "What else does it say, Renee?" I screamed. "Any other vitally important information you'd like to share?!"

She scanned the rest of the page as Duke and Bom clambered out behind me.

"WHAT DOES IT SAY, RENEE?!" I shrieked, balancing on the roof and readying myself to jump to the next roof as Renee popped up onto the roof as well.

"I don't know I don't know" she kept screaming. "I don't know I don't know--"

Duke and Bom followed me to the next rooftop, but Renee stayed behind, sobbing.

"Renee!!" I hollered, "Renee, JUMP!"

She crumpled into herself, and with alarm, I could see the Lemon Squad entering the attic below her. "I'm saving you," she whispered so softly that I had to read her lips. "RENEE!" I howled. "No!!!" I tried to jump back to the house, but Duke and Bom held me back. "NO!!"

The sky seemed to collapse inwards. Duke, Bom, and I saw the green expanse split in half like a cardboard box opening inwards, and a powerful gust of wind blew us upwards into what felt like a tornado. Images swirled around me, and I lost my grip on Bom, his hand slipping from mine inevitably. I crashed into something hard and I rolled over, groaning at the pain in my shoulder. Sitting up, I felt a throbbing pain in my knee. I looked around and saw two rows of uniform houses down a lone stone road, everything about one house the same as the house before it and after it. It was like seeing double, except you were seeing twenty instead of double. Mr. Brennan came out of a house and walked up to me. I stood up to face him, uneasy and waiting for a blow that never came.

Without a word, he pointed up to where the sky should have been. Instead of blue, or even green, words stretched out, covering the sky in a story. Nausea and fear mixing in my body like a volcano about to explode, I read the end of the story that we had been thrown in. The sky blurred, transforming into a buzzing grey hive, then cleared to a clear white page, with one sentence written on it, "It all began with rain." I closed my eyes. I couldn't take it any more. Duke and Bom stood behind me, similarly horrified that we were about to do to someone else what had just been done to us.

"What happens next?" Mr. Brennan urged in a low whisper. "What happens next?"