The Rain world

It was a dark and stormy night.  Randy Smith was driving home after working late.  In many ways it was a rainy night like any other in small town America. The visibility was low due to the deluge.  Lightning crashes across the sky, lighting up the clouds and illuminating the road as bright as if it were day. They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, but Randy was certain he had seen several bolts in the exact same place in the distance. It was raining so hard now he could barely see 20 feet in front of the car, so he slowed down well below the speed limit so as not to get into an accident.  Traffic was fairly light but there were nonetheless hazards that he wished to avoid.  Suddenly, he saw something, or at least, he thought he did.  Perhaps it was just a shadow in the middle of the road, but it seemed to scamper off when his headlights approached.  No scamper wasn’t the right word, more like hop. 

But then he saw it again and this time he was certain it was some kind of creature, and it was right there in front of him, so he stopped to avoid hitting it. As he looked and tried to get a better view, he saw a creature like a giant frog appeared. 

The creature had a strange humanlike quality to it.  He approached it slowly in the car, rolling down the window despite the rain to get a better look. Something about this creature fascinated him and he wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he got a whimsical feel about the whole thing. 

“Hello?” Randy said, before he instantly thought “of course he won’t respond, what was I thinking?”

But to his surprise the creature responded, in a gruff and belchy voice. “Hello to you”

“What are you and how do you speak English”

“I am a Bullywug and you are not the first human I have met, I picked up your language fairly easily”. 

As they were talking he saw in the distance more shadowy figures.

They looked like even larger creatures, crawling out of the rapidly forming pond by the side of the road.  

The Bullywug then asked “Why don’t you come out and I can show you a world you couldn’t imagine”

“But it is pouring rain” Randy replied.

“Yes, that is the only time when it is possible to see”.

Randy, curious, got out of the car, racing his umbrella from beside him. 

“You will have to go for a swim in this pond”

“Oh but that water can’t be more than 3 feet deep” Randy said, and yet he had a strange urge to believe this creature, he did not know what had gotten over him. He also now saw that the larger creatures he had seen in the shadows were something similar to swamp monsters from old movies, but more friendly looking. 

The Bullywug said “follow me” as he dove into the water.   

Still not convinced but nevertheless curious, Randy decided to dunk his head into the water.  No sooner had he done this then he found himself falling headlong into a watery realm. 

This is not what the pond should have looked like underneath.  He had driven by this very spot on clear sunny days and seen exactly what it looked like, forestry underbrush, trees and other plants.  There was none of that here. Just a vast watery world. Where there were once trees now giant underwater plants grew. As he viewed all this another realization came to him, if he was underwater, why could he breath as easily as if he was surrounded by air? As he pondered this,  the Bullywug led him deeper into the darker areas, when suddenly, illumination.  There seemed to be glowing orbs on sticks, almost like lamp posts and yet, seemingly organic.  They kept swimming until they arrived at what appeared to be an underwater city.  

“We have arrived,” the bully said.

“Arrived where?”  Asked Randy “and I don’t even know your name, I am Randy by the way”

“My name is unimportant, and is likely unpronounceable to you. As to where we are, this is Frogtown.  Of course that is just a translation of its real name.”

He led Randy to a small domed structure.

“This is my house, and this is my family,” he said, leading Randy inside.

There he saw what he figured a female bullywug looked like and smaller tadpole looking ones.  

“That is my wife and kids”

The wife croaked something that Randy couldn't understand.

“She said pleasure to meet you” bullywug said  “she is not as adept at human language as I am”

“Let me show you some other things,” he said, leading Randy into the city.  All around he saw fascinating creatures, not just bullywogs or those swamp creatures he saw on the surface, nor were there familiar fish or water creatures he recognized, but a whole host of creatures, many seeming to glide or even fly more than swim.  

Randy finally had to ask as it had been bugging him.

“If we are underwater, why can I breather here?”

“Well” said Bully, which is what Randy had decided to call him “this land has the same qualities as your Earth, and yet they are manifested in different forms.  See those creatures over there?  They are essentially birds in this world.  They fly through the water, as if they were flying through air.  This land was only accessible to humans during downpours.  It is the time at which the borders separating our two worlds are the weakest.”

Randy was still in awe.  He saw Bully pick something that looked like a flower, but it glowed on its own. 

“Here, take this,” he said. “This will be a memento of this land.   The time is quickly approaching where you will no longer be able to get back to your world if you stay here any longer.  The rains on your world have ended and the connection between the worlds will be broken, until the next big rain, and who knows when that will be, or where the connection will form, it is never in quite the same place.”

“Will I be able to return?”  Randy asked “I mean in the next major rainstorm of course”

“Maybe” said Bully “but as I said, you never know for sure where it will open up.  However, if you keep your eyes open and look through the shadows you may see clues that will lead you back here”.  

With that he bid Randy a final farewell and swam the other way.  “Until we meet again” he said as he left.

Randy quickly swam to the surface.  As he stepped out of the water he noticed it was sunny.   He curiously tried to see if he would be able to return to that world but was already standing on solid ground on which water went up right past his ankles. He sat there for a minute trying to process everything that had happened. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the flower Bully had given him, it’s light already starting to fade.  He walked back to his car, which was still right where he had parked it at the side of the road.  He got in and drove off, back in the world he knew so well.