Arrow's Rain

by ES

The lovely and perfect land of Greece was very blessed to have a young, happy girl to live in it.  The girl?  Her name was Arrow.  Arrow enjoyed many things such as cleaning, swimming, gardening, and hanging out with her family.  Arrow was just a ray of sunshine, and anyone and everyone who has even ever been in the presence of her would agree.  She had her signature purple dress, that she would wear eight days a week.  Her dress, one she had gotten when she was a young girl, was very flowy and she has ordered in bigger sizes ever since.  Arrow was rarely ever sad, as she could go many years without crying.  She had no reason to be sad.  People saw that she had the potential for many different things.  But even with all of these good things with Arrow, she only had one flaw, if she started crying, she couldn’t stop.

Greece didn’t have many complications, but the Gods started observing Earth every day a little more, and all they could see was earth getting dryer and dryer.  They really needed someone to help it rain, so people  could grow their crops and drink and survive on this lovely green Earth.  

As time went on they realized that everyday life got really difficult.  People began starving and got overheated.  People were starving and overheating and dying—even animals started dying.  Dying.  Dying.

The gods knew they couldn’t keep going like this forever. They needed someone to produce rain and save Earth.  The gods really tried thinking of who could help with the situation, but they all kept thinking back to Arrow and the possibilities of making her cry!  They knew she never cried, not ever.  They could not stop asking themselves: If they asked Arrow nicely, and she knew that there was no one else interested in this one job they needed her to do, would she to it? Of course, they also knew Arrow may not agree, but it was worth a shot.  Even if it meant they would have to lie.

Slowly walking up to the castle where Arrow worked with the cleaning committee and fixed  dinners the every Thursday.  They rehearsed what they were going to say.  “Dear Miss Arrow,” they kept practicing, “do you want to save lives today?  All you have to do is cry!”

“She's so nice that she will never pass on this opportunity!” one God smiled.

“Right, anyway we’re almost there!” They kept walking with pride.

The castle was very bland, rusty gold, and it wasn’t as big as the God’s castle, but still a pretty good size. The castle has a history of old God’s living there, but one day it just went abandoned.  No one saw it for many 100 years, until Zeus when he was a little child, found it again and lived in it for a few years.  He then moved out to a bigger and better castle.  But no matter what anyone says,  that castle was a big part of his life.  That castle was used for weaponry as well.

“Hello, Ma’am,” a God said, “may we please see dear Arrow?”

“Of course,” the leader of the cleaning committee said, “Right this way.”

The Gods followed the nice old lady down every single hallway they went down.  There were a ton of stairs as well.  Every step brought them excitement. Maybe she would actually say yes!  It’s a possibility of course.  

They finally made it into this dark hallway, where the nice old lady brought them into the room onto the left of the hallway.  “Arrow!  I have got some visitors here for you!”

Arrow jumped up and was so excited to have someone be there for her.  But soon her face turned into a shocked face and she wondered: why did the Gods, The Gods, want to be there for her?

“Hello, did I do something wrong, sir, sorry I guess I would say sirs but that doesn’t make sense either—” they cut her off.

“We understand that, dear Arrow.” The God looked her straight into her eyes. “You are not in trouble. As a matter of fact, we are here to ask you a favor.”

Arrow put her smile back on like it was some sort of mask. “Okay!”

As soon as that, they were on the way back to the God’s special castle. Pretty easy.  Arrow walked with them like a lost child, alone in a crowd.  There were so many steps and hallways and tunnels to travel to just to get out of the building.  

“You do this every Thursday?” a God asked Arrow. "This is a workout!"

“I'm used to do it every day, but the committee recently changed it to only once a week, and my day is Thursday.” Arrow looked them straight in the eye. “I’m kind of used to it at this point, having been doing it for years.” She chuckled.

“Does it ever get confusing?” they asked.

“No, not anymore.  Maybe, at first, it did,”

Maybe she would actually want to get out of this big job of hers, she could always leave, but she loved it and have been in it for so many years, she just could not.

After a couple of minutes, they made it out of the castle.  

“Ah, fresh air!” Arrow was dancing around.  Not one flaw on the outside.  Barely anyone saw the inside of her life, so everyone called her the “Happy Girl” because she was.  At least when everyone saw her.

“We’re just going to go to ‘The Special Castle’, have you ever been?” one of the God’s asked.

“Wait, seriously? No! I’ve never been, I’m so excited!” Arrow smiled with her teeth.  Pearly, white, perfect teeth.

They got onto the carriage and started riding with the golden horses to “The Special Castle.”  It felt like such a long time on the carriage.  Probably because Arrow was nervous about what favor they were going to ask her.  She may have not shown her nervousness, because that’s weakness, but she was definitely nervous.  

They finally made it to the castle and stepped inside.

“Arrow’s here and will fix the water problem!” a God yelled.

“Hold on, I am not good at fixing the water system in castles-” Arrow was interrupted.

“No, Arrow it’s nothing with that.  Please come with me,” He held out his hand for Arrow to grab.  Arrow grabbed it, hesitantly, and they were on their way.

There were so many gold pieces of artwork on the walls.  There was a statue of Zeus and Apollo, how cool!  She has only been in their presence once and it was for a project with the school.  That was about 4 years ago though.  She was too young to understand.   Arrow definitely felt out of place, with her cleaning uniform on.  After about 10 minutes, he brought her into a very special room, Apollo’s room.  

“This is Apollo’s room, isn’t it?” Arrow was shaking from excitement.

“Yep, and you’ll talk to him about the favor.”

He left and didn’t even talk to Arrow about when to go in or anything.  Arrow opened Apollo’s door with the diamond doorknob.

“Hello, aren’t you Arrow?  Welcome, my name is Apollo,” he held out his hand for Arrow to shake.

“Hello Apollo, yes I am Arrow,” Arrow shook his hand and smiled.

“Well there dear Arrow, we have a huge favor to ask you.”

“Bring it on,” Arrow sat down in front of Apollo, on one of the wooden chairs in his room, he had 25 chairs in there for meetings, at least that what Arrow’s guess was.

“See, there has been a dent in today’s watering system for Earth.  The Earth is very dry, and we need your help.”

“How am I supposed to help?” Arrow’s eyes sparkled like the sun.

“Well, all we need you to do is cry.  You can save many lives and-” Arrow stopped him right there.

“I’m sorry, Apollo, I can’t do that.” 

“But the thing is, you can!” Apollo stood up waving his arms in the air.

“I’m so sorry, I have to get back to cleaning,” and just like that, Arrow was on her way out of the castle.

How was Apollo ever going to get her back?  He had to make some sort of plan.  Some sort of fake plan.  So that’s what he did.  Apollo was able to see future big situations.  Usually, he did it if someone was going to make it through something alive or if someone’s family member was okay.  Apollo made a fake memory.  He then got Zeus in there.

“Zeus, I need you to tell me if this sounds like a real memory for Arrow’s family starving and all of the people starving,” Apollo had wide eyes.

“Okay,” Zeus was a little confused but went with it.

Apollo made a fake story.  And It went like this.

I see this: everyone’s starving, everyone’s dying.  There’s no water to stay hydrated.  There’s nothing.  Kids are losing their parents.  Animals are separating away from their family.  Everyone is not how they used to be.  I see your parents.  Your family.  Starving and dying, feeling upset that one of their family members couldn’t possibly just think of other people.  Be less selfish.

“Interesting story, she will actually say yes, let’s go get her.” Zeus ran out to get Arrow. Arrow was already far away and out of the castle at that time, she almost made it back to her cleaning job. “Arrow, we need you again.” Zeus patted her shoulder.

“No, I already told you.” Arrow didn’t even look back

“Arrow, Apollo saw a vision.” Zeus had a sparkle in his eye.

“Okay fine, I’m coming,” Arrow rolled her eyes and walked into Apollo’s room where he was waiting for her.  

He felt like she would actually agree this time. "Arrow, I’ve got a vision.” Apollo sat in front of her on the golden couch and shared his fake vision in order to get her to agree.  

While he was telling her about his vision, he saw something impossible and something that shocked him.  A tear.  Crying.  Actual crying. From Arrow.  She’s sad.  She wiped her tears.  

“Apollo, please don’t tell anyone about this.” Arrow couldn’t stop crying out of guilt.  Arrow was not the type of person to just feel the guilt forever.  Her clothes were wet.  Her face was wet.  She couldn’t control it.  She started to scream and a stream began to flow and couldn’t stop.  The whole place was filled with tears and rising very high, so high that it started to get out of the castle.  Onto Greece.  No one knew what was happening or who was doing it, but it was a lot for them to handle.

Apollo was clueless about what to do until he figured it out.  He was the God of the sun, and Arrow was creating rain.  Apollo could stop this!  He just needed to go over to her, some way, and somehow.

Apollo swam over to Arrow with her tears and hugged her.  He didn’t think it would do anything, but it was worth a shot.  

After a couple of seconds of just sitting there, hugging her, he realized that the tears stopped coming and the water started to go down.  It was working!

He hugged her tighter until all of the water was gone.

“Oh Apollo, was that story a fake?  It didn’t seem real,” Arrow asked, her eyes red and swollen.

“I didn’t want to say this Arrow, but sadly it was,” Apollo paused, “we just really needed someone to create rain!  We didn’t know it would create some sort of, what would you call it?”

“Flood?” Arrow asked.

“Good name, I apologize for making you go through that.”

“Can’t accept apologies that quickly,” Arrow walked out of the room, pulling herself.

Every time you see it rain or flood, it is Arrow feeling guilt about something very deep in her life.  Don’t be selfish, some of the things you may want in life may happen but it may come back even worse.