Rain

By the third week of money raining down from the sky, even the homeless had gotten bored of it. It was the summer of my twelfth year, and this was the biggest thing to have ever happened in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Soon after the first bill fell, the news had circulated nationally. Police swarmed the area, then state troopers, and eventually the FBI. We had even seen the McDormand family come down from the city in their great black car, peering out the window, wondering if they should head out into the masses to go bill-catching. Eventually, the police had to rope off the area, but people from around the country still found a way inside to see the little specks of green fluttering down from the clouds.

At first, we had assumed it was fake (though we caught as many as we could just in case). But only hours later, the president had confirmed that it was indeed real, and that he had no idea how to put a stop to it. And by the second week, all the authorities had determined was between 2 and 4 PM you could expect fifties and hundreds — followed by a light sprinkle of pennies by nightfall (which turned out to be pretty painful when they hit you on the head).

I told my father that I thought it had to be some sort of generous alien, perhaps a King from another galaxy. He didn't seem to think so. Some of the locals wondered if it was a test from the Heavens. But collecting somewhere north of twenty thousand dollars, I wondered to myself how I had become so numb to something that had been so extraordinary not weeks before.

It was late in the afternoon, just as the bills turned to brass and silver, when I noticed a small boy about my age sitting at the edge of our yard. It was an odd sight, as this was around the time when the tourists took shelter in the local motel and under trees, safe from the clatter of coins. But the boy sat there unmoving, crosslegged, watching the coins drop from the sky.

I called out to my father, “I’m going out to grab some change!” And before he could yell after me to bring the umbrella, I dashed out onto the lawn, covering my head the best I could.

“Hey!”

The boy turned around and smiled at me. “It’s amazing, isn’t it.”

I lept to the side to dodge a spatter of 50 cent coins heading toward my head. “Wouldn’t you rather be out for when the big bills come? The change will still be here tonight when it all settles. Then you won’t worry about having to get pelted.” I was shouting quite loud to be heard over the noise of the coin rain.

“Oh, no. This is the best part. Look.” He gestured up at the sky. “See how it catches the light?”

The sun had begun to set — one of those inky types of sunsets — the kind that I had grown used to in Akron, and never really spent time thinking about.

“Right there!”

Just as the sun had begun to dip, the light had caught on all of the faces of the coins, reflecting the pink sunset on one million smaller suns, before clattering to the ground. It was a few seconds before I realized I was holding my breath.

“That’s— that’s lovely.” It truly was.

“Thank you.” He glanced up at me, then looked away. “Are you a trustworthy person?”

I was caught off guard. “I think so. I mean... My dad trusts me to go bill collecting every morning.”

The coins had started collecting on the ground like hard snow. It wouldn’t be until late at night when the state sent over the bulldozers to clean the streets.

“Follow me.” The boy said.

So I did. I chased him through the pennies and the dimes, dashing down the car-less streets and toward the main road in town. The street lights were out — they had been crushed weeks ago during the first rain — and as the sun finally dipped into the horizon, we were immersed in a dark, loudness.

“Where are we going?”

“I want to show you how I did it!”

“Did what?” I yelled. But I couldn’t be sure that he heard me.

He finally ducked beneath a storefront and opened the door to the apartment beside it. I ran under the awning and gasped for breath. I noticed I had some small bruises from being out in the rain for so long. My father and I had only really spent time outside during the noon hour of big bills and weightless rain.

The boy opened the door, which I noticed was scuffed rather badly, and beckoned for me to follow him up the stairs. It was only now that I felt any hesitation, and wondered if he himself were to be trusted. But one look back at the rain, coming down heavier than before, told me that my best bet was to follow him and wait it out. So I went inside and shut the door behind me, muffling the sound of the heavy coins coming down against the streets and roofs.

Once I stepped inside, I was hit with an inexplicable sense of warmth and comfort. His stairwell was warmly lit and filled with framed photographs of his family taped against the walls — the boy, whose name I realized I did not know, and his kind-looking mother

“So, what is it you want to show me?” I whispered, not wanting to be rude in someone else’s home.

He beckoned me forward, and I noticed how much bigger I was than him. I was tall for my age, the tallest girl in my class, and the boy was short and slight, swimming in his baggy shirt and pants.

I looked around the living room to see if his mother was there, but she was nowhere in view.

“Come on!” He hissed.

I slipped into the room where his voice came from.

It was a study. A small one. Lined with shelves upon shelves of beat-up books and an old, rickety desk. I haphazardly ran my hand along the bind of the books on the shelf, and I was reminded of the ones in my own home that had been left unread for school.

“This is beautiful. Is this your mother’s study?”

But the boy didn’t respond. He was feeling along the shelf too. He went on his tip-toes and pulled out a small book. But as I approached him, I realized it wasn’t a book at all. At least, not the kind I had expected. It was a small, black notebook.

He opened it, then looked at the page for a moment, as if hesitating. Then, he held it out to me, expectant, nervous.

I looked at the page, and it read, in scrawny, slanted handwriting. “A new way to watch the sunset.”

I was confused, but felt rude not saying anything, so I said, “I’m not sure I understand?” I was starting to feel like this was all a big mistake following him out here, and that I should get back home.

“Don’t you see? I did it!”

“Did what?”

“The rain, of course.”

I looked back down at the notebook. Then back at him. Had I really trapped myself in the house of a crazy boy? “I… um. I think I have to go.”

“No, please don’t go. It’s real — my mother gave it to me. It makes things happen. Beautiful things.”

“I’m sorry - I’m late for dinner!”

And before he could respond, I ran out the door and down the warm stairs and I didn’t look back because I didn’t want to see his mother or the boy’s disappointed face.

When I got outside, the coins were just sprinkling now, a drizzle of pennies getting stuck in the backs of my shoes.

When I got home, my father was waiting inside.

“Where on earth have you been?”

“I— uh, I just went out to—“

He grabbed hold of my arm and examined my bruises. “You’re lucky it isn’t worse! I told you we only go outside for the big bills. Now eat up then get to bed, because tomorrow we’re getting up bright and early for our morning collection.”

I ate my soup and couldn’t help but wonder if the boy was right.

That’s impossible. I thought to myself. But only four weeks ago, I would have thought that money raining down on Akron, of all places, was something much further than impossible.

The next morning, I looked outside for the boy, but he wasn’t there. And then after the morning collection, I looked again.

Finally, I heard the coins coming down on our roof, I rushed to the window, and sure enough, there he was. I grabbed an umbrella, and swung my door open. The boy turned his head toward me and started running away. I rushed outside and called out after him.

“Hey! Stop, please — I — I’m sorry!”

I followed the boy to a large willow tree, when he slumped over by it’s trunk. When I caught up with him, I saw that he was holding the black notebook.

The rain began to come down heavier and heavier around the tree. The boy didn’t look up.

I bit my lip. “How does it work?”

The boy clutched the notebook tight. “My mother gave it to me.”

“So did she do this, then?” I gestured at the rain and smiled. “Tell her thank you from my family.”

He shook his head. “No, she left it for me.”

My smile dropped. “What do you mean, she left it?”

He held out the notebook so I could see. It was a different page, written in smooth, looping cursive. “Our home will always be warm and filled with my love, even after I am gone.”

There was a long silence. All we could hear were the coins rattling against the tree branches.

Finally, the boy looked up at me. When he spoke, his voice shook. “We used to watch the sunset together, my Mum and me. Every night, before she got sick.”

“I’m sorry.” I whispered.

“She told me that certain people — they get used to it. The sunset. Because it’s here every day since the day since we were born. And that even if there was a new way to watch the sunset, most people would get used to it in a few days. Or maybe not even notice it was there.”

He finished and looked down.

“You know, I think she would agree that the sunset is meant to be shared.”

I took the notebook from him and flipped it to a fresh page and wrote a note.

And so we sat together, beneath the shade of a curved oak tree. Listening to the patter of coins against the ground, and watching as the sunlight caught on each of them, reflecting the light in a new way. And the notebook lay in front of us, open to the fresh page.

“A friend.”