When The Seasons Change

When The Rain Comes 1

In the countryside just at the foot of the mountain, a few miles away from the highway rests an ordinary farmhouse.

A man lives alone there with no family or relatives around. The kids of the neighbors called him uncle Theo. He wasn't an old man, he was a man in his mid thirties that looked haggard everyday from doing farmwork that he looked older than his age. He didn't look happy but he didn't look sad either.

He looked like he was just living life for the sake of his farm and his dog. That was how the neighborhood kids always saw Theo and they couldn't help but pity the gloomy man with only his dog for company on a cold day.

But sometime in the middle of the rainy season Theo changed. One morning while the neighborhood kids was riding on their bikes Theo was sitting on the couch on his porch. When the kids passed his house Theo greeted them. The shock was enough to make the kids fall off of their bikes and Theo did another unbelievable thing, he laughed goodnaturedly at them.

The kids couldn't believe that Theo would once more look like an alive man, a truly living man and not just a husk of a man.

It all started one particularly cold and rainy day in the middle of the rainy season when Theo was braving the rain to get his chickens in their chicken coops. The rain and wind was getting stronger by the second and Theo had a feeling that something bad would happen soon. Just as he thought that, a lightning struck him and he fell to the ground unconscious.

He woke up some hours later to a much calmer rain and a woman in a white dress crying by his side.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" The woman repeated again and again as she sobbed beside him.

"I'm fine" Theo uttered in a weak voice and as soon as he did, a searing pain struck his right shoulder all the way to his forearm.

"Fuck!! that hurts!!" Theo screamed in pain holding on to his shoulder, his scream jolted the woman beside him, making her stop mumbling and look at Theo.

"Oh god I'm so sorry!" The woman rushed to wrap her hands on his shoulder and slowly the pain went away.

Theo could only look at the woman in part wonder and part fear. But the fear quickly went away when even after his shoulder was completely healed the woman was still inspecting his shoulder over and over while mumbling apologies.

Theo touched her hand to make her look at him and spoke.

"I'm already healed, I'm fine now" The woman finally stopped her mumbling. But after a second a realization made her eyes widen and jerk away from Theo.

"You can see me?!" The woman shrieked and Theo winced.

A second later the woman suddenly vanished in thin air like she wasn't even there in the first place.

"What the" Theo could only mutter as he looked at the place the woman was standing on just seconds ago.

Another lightning from afar made Theo stand up quickly and rush home. That night while having tea infront of the fireplace, Theo recalled the events from the afternoon with growing confusion. Who was that woman? Why was he beside him when he woke up? Did she really heal his arm with just her hand? What even is she?

Theo woke up to another rainy day, he doesn't have much to do in the rainy season except stay at home so he grabbed his reading glasses, opened a book from his personal library and was immediately immersed in the world of the book.

A sudden lightning made him jolt and a sound of something falling down hard infront of his house followed. He quickly got up and went to the window to see what fell down from his roof but the one he saw was one he couldn't have ever imagined to fall there.

It was the woman from yesterday dressed in the same white dress and lying unconscious on the ground in front of his house. Theo quickly went out of the house and carried her inside.

He couldn't possibly change her clothes so he just wrapped her in a thick blanket, pushed the couch in front of the fire and laid her there. While he anxiously waited for her to wake up he grabbed a towel and tried to dry her hair.

After two hours the woman opened her eyes to Theo reading a book in a chair beside her.
The woman quickly stood up but the blanket was still wrapped tightly around her so she outbalanced and fell to the wooden floor with a loud thump.

The sound broke Theo's concentration on what he was reading and made him look up from his book. When he saw the woman wrapped like a burrito lying on the floor face first he laughed for the first time.

At the sound of his laugh the woman looked up at him indignantly. "Nothing is funny" Her words dripped like poison from her mouth but Theo laughed even harder. How could he take her seriously from that position and looking like an angry burrito?

The woman angrily tried to break free from the blanket and Theo just sat there laughing, but after a few seconds of seeing her struggle to no avail he took pity on her and undid the wrapped blanket.

As soon as she was free from the blanket she scrambled to stand up and get away from Theo.

"Don't worry I'm not gonna hurt you" Thei put up both of his hands to show that he was harmless but the woman still bristled. She looked to the door and back to Theo. They had a few seconds of staring battle before she turned and bolted through the door.

Theo looked to the open door and to the outside but she was nowhere to be seen again. Theo sighed in disappoinment and closed the door and went back to his book deciding that wondering about the woman is taking up precious time and he'd much rather spend that time reading a book than thinking about endless questions he doesn't have the answer to.