When the rains may come (Science Fiction)

11. And it keeps raining...

The Gavins were all farmers. Going all the way back seven generations. Their hands were more used to the soil than their feet were to the shoes. They'd grown tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflowers and herbs. Their patch of land seemed to grow bigger with the birth of a new baby Gavin. And the adult farmers just got better at handling the crop as time passed.

Ursus Gavin (who was about a hundred and three years old before the war began) could listen to the wind and tell the day when the clouds would burst. Jerome Gavin, his grandson, was always awed to find how often the old timer was correct.

"It's true, I guess. Mother nature speaks a different language to the older ones," Jerome used to say to his wife.

"The tomatoes will grow sour!" Old Ursus uttered one day. "Harvest 'em little bastards 'fore the week ends!"

Jerome and his siblings working the farm looked up. "But, they aren't ripe enough," Nancy, Jerome's older sister said.

Ursus grimaced his ancient wrinkly face at his granddaughter. "Well, I'm ripe enough to tell ya that they'll grow sour!" He spat. "Cut 'em out, Susan!"

"I'm not Susan, I'm Nancy!"

"Susan, Nancy whatever! Cut out the damn tomatoes!"

"Just listen to him, sis," Jerome muttered to her. "You know he is more right in these things than any of us."

"He can't even remember our names, Jerry!"

"He can still listen to the wind."

"The old geezer's going senile!"

"Your husband's more senile than I'll ever be, Susan!"

Nancy grumbled again. "I'm Nancy, not Susan! And I'm not married yet, gramps!"

"Married, ain't married, who cares? Just cut out the damn tomatoes!"

Without arguing any further, they harvested the tomatoes a good two weeks prior to the ripening. That was the same month when the rats brought along the fleas. Their neighbor's farm lost more than half of their yield. But the Gavin's ruled the market that year. All it took was timely ethylene spray for the tomatoes they'd spread out in their warehouse. And of course, grandpa Ursus's wisdom of the wind.

"I told you, mother nature speaks a different language to him," Jerome said to his siblings, once again proud of his grandpa Ursus.

Then came the day when the wind didn't speak to Ursus. That was the time the first cluster bombs were dropped. Air turned to poison gas. "Death breath" was spreading like a plague. The war had begun.

The enemy had decided to target the farms before they decided to attack army bases. Next they targeted the water reserves of several cities. Then the air got even more poisonous when they released the spores of Dandelion fever. Whoever breathed it raw breathed in cyanide. But unlike cyanide, the spores didn't give the mercy of a quick death.

Ursus Gavin's senility had been in question for a long time. But the day he actually went insane from age was when he thought the purple mist looked as beautiful as a field of lavender. He opened the window and let the poison in. The entire Gavin house was infected in minutes.

Purple veins under pale flesh. Pale, lightless eyes looking at nothing and everything all at once. Slow, sauntering feet scrambling from one forgotten room to another.

"Nancy, mother nature speaks to him a different lang..." a mindless mouth would mutter and trail off.

"I'm not Nancy, I'm Susan..."

"The tomatoes are going sour..."

"He is going senile..."

"The wind isn't speaking the same..."