Fiction: Rain Dance (the importance of joy and play)

"Who is Rain?" asked the little girl in the lantern light.

"Rain is a dancer," I replied.

"A dancer?" she said, prompting for more.

"Yes, a dancer," I repeated, pausing for a moment to glance at our slumbering fields and up to the empty sky. The night was full and people were starting to arrive.

I raised my hand and gestured toward the stars, "Rain dances on the veil above, his feet tapping and bouncing on the cushion of the sky. Sometimes his feet will sink into the pillow of a cloud and water shakes loose and falls below to wash the earth and feed our crops. Some days he dances lightly, others with tumbles and leaps, the sound of his landing shaking the earth as his smile flashes and lights up the world."

"But he doesn't like to dance here," the little girl said, sandals removed and toes bunching on the dry earth beneath her feet.

"No," I replied, "not for a long time."

"But why?"

The truck with the speakers rumbled by. I waited until it had stopped at the improvised floor, where the circle would form, and then I leaned forward in my chair and said, "Let me tell you a story."

One day, a man climbed atop the house on the highest hill to look for Rain. He saw the dancer in the distance, down by the sea, far away and twirling by. With all his might he shouted his question, "Tumbling Rain, why do you dance for us no more?" He expected no reply; Rain is often too busy dancing to have conversations with Man. Yet moments later an answer came back, wafting on the wind.

"I see you bent over the plow,
day after day,
with tears on your eyes.
You are unhappy.

I see your woman,
hauling the water, pounding the beans,
with tears on her eyes.
She is unhappy.

I see the little ones toiling,
no laughing, no leaping,
with tears on their eyes,
they are unhappy.

You are all so unhappy.
Your tears make you unhappy.
When I dance, tears fall from the sky.
Why would I wish to make a sad people,
more sad?"

"But that's silly!" exclaimed the little girl after I finished my tale, "my tears don't make me sad. It's being sad that makes my tears!"

"Ah, but Rain is just a simple dancer," I explained gently, "How is he to know the difference?"

"Oh," she said. The little girl looked up into the night sky, toward a lone, distant cloud shadowing the moonlight, and asked, "Will he ever return?"

"I suppose that's up to you, little one," I said.

"Me?" her wide eyes now stared into mine, "What can I do? I'm little. Everybody says so."

"Ah, but you're the most important one of all," I said, sliding from my chair to settle in front of her, "You can laugh, you can leap. You can dance, you can play. You can show the world that tears or no tears, you live with joy. And drawn by your joy, perhaps Rain will dance with us once again."

Music flowed from the back of the truck and I could see partners forming in the circle. I stood to join them.

"Now go play little one," I urged with a fond pat to her head, "the dance is beginning, and Rain is watching."