Nestled behind the gentle rolling hills of a remote countryside is a quiet, unassuming town easily ignored by the massively swooping curves of the interstate. Its only direct line to the highway is a single unpaved road whose existence is only acknowledged by those who know to look for it. The town is sprinkled with houses made seemingly out of cardboard boxes. The only brick structures in the vicinity line the town’s oldest road running directly down the middle of the city. No other road so perfectly divided a town into its symmetrical halves. It led straight to the house of the town’s founder where his last descendant, his great grandson now resides.
This house was the only structure in the entire town that seemed to have carved itself into the subtle landscape. Any passersby on the interstate may miss the cardboard box houses or the masonry edifices along the town’s centerline but cannot, unless a fair amount of effort was exerted, deny the presence of the house at the end of it. The roof tiles drooped and clung in desperation to keep from slipping off particularly at the corners where the slopes of each side like shoulders struggling against gravity. The windows looked sad and seemed to cry in the presence of rainfall.
And for the past eight years, it had rained. Pillow clouds of gray and black had loomed over the sleepy town for nearly a decade with no explanation to be found in science, conspiracy theories, or biblical omens of any proportions. On a good day, droplets would dance in the cold air with no sense of direction lest it finds itself landing on someone’s face as a frigid little pinprick. Bad days brought about downpour that would leave anyone question what this town had done to offend whatever deity was responsible. But it was not the town’s fault. The reason for the rain is simple, and he resides in the home at the end of the road, climbing to the top of a distant hill.
Eight years ago, she left him. The reason for her leaving was unclear as was who, if anybody, was at fault. But why she left is of no matter. Without her, the founder’s descendant was despondent and unresponsive to the outreaching of the community that his great grandfather had built. Little is known about the woman who had brought about such grief to this little town.
The citizens had seen her, and she was the loveliest being to have ever set foot in the town. She was a petite woman whose name had never been revealed save for a rumor or two. Her hair was golden and shimmering and fell just short of her elegant shoulders. Local folklore would even attest that her hair alone stole the sunshine from the town. Her eyes were beautiful and round, shimmering like two blue pools in an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. She had lips that were full and pink leaving one to wonder how breathtaking an impression they left on the founder’s descendant when they curled into a smile.
There was no warning of her exit from the town, no indication that there had been some argument or trouble in her relationship with him. All the locals knew was that she had left him. No one knew, nor would they ever know, the motive for such an act. Whether it was malicious intent or cruel fate, nobody blamed the girl nor could they find any fault in the boy. Sometimes these things happen. Eight years of cold and rain had not encouraged the town to retract its outstretched arms to the house on the hill, but still the rain came.
But one day, as the rain pit patted on the roofs and windows and heads of the townspeople, a quiet came over everyone and everything. Water still dripped from above in a steady rhythm and every eye that was available was drawn to the founder’s house. Music, initially soft and somber, emanated from the dilapidated structure and built into a furious rhythm that caused the town to dance. It was a singular guitar, only six strings, but it may as well have been an orchestra bursting through the highest window of the house.
The townspeople, confused at first, began to smile in realization that the founder’s great grandson had been playing music of great elation. Just as quickly as it crawled across the sky, eight years before, the clouds melted into the bluest blue the town had ever seen. The warmth of the sun tickled and bathed the faces of the people as they ran out to witness the event. There had been no indication that the beautiful, young woman had returned. There was no evidence of any letter or phone call from her arriving to the house on the hill. But nobody cared. The rain was gone and the music was here to stay. And for the first time in eight years, the people enjoyed the sunshine as it streamed across the contours of this once quiet and unassuming town.
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