There is an old story in the Rain Kingdom that the rain began there.
No one remembers who first told it.
This is generally regarded as evidence of its age.
Children learn the story early.
The rain falls upon the Kingdom.
The rivers flow through the Kingdom.
The clouds gather above the Kingdom.
Therefore the rain belongs to the Kingdom.
The argument appears persuasive.
At least until one begins asking questions.
Questions have a long history of complicating persuasive arguments.
For centuries no one paid much attention to the matter.
The rain fell.
The crops grew.
The roads deteriorated.
Life continued.
Then the travellers returned.
This had become something of a pattern.
The travellers reported strange things.
As travellers do.
Foreign shores.
Unknown gardens.
Different skies.
Unfamiliar worlds.
Most surprising of all:
they reported rain.
Not merely weather.
Rain.
Rain that fell beyond the Kingdom.
Rain that nourished distant valleys.
Rain that drummed upon foreign roofs.
Rain that gathered in rivers no map of the Kingdom had ever recorded.
The reports caused considerable discussion.
The rain itself remained characteristically modest.
Among those fascinated by the stories was an elderly teacher named Liora.
Many people assumed she had retired.
Liora politely declined to participate in retirement.
This was typical.
She had spent much of her life teaching children about the Kingdom.
Now she found herself wondering about its horizon.
One rainy afternoon she sat beside the eastern shore.
The same shore where foreign waves arrived.
The same shore where many difficult questions eventually appeared.
The sea moved quietly.
Rain drifted across the water.
The horizon dissolved into mist.
A young student sat beside her.
His name was Tomas.
He had recently reached the age at which curiosity becomes impossible to supervise.
"Is it true?"
Liora smiled.
This was rarely a simple beginning.
"What?"
"The rain falls elsewhere."
"Yes."
The boy considered this.
The answer seemed to disappoint him.
For a while neither spoke.
The rain continued falling.
Entirely unconcerned.
"But then why is this the Rain Kingdom?"
Liora looked toward the sea.
The question was a good one.
Good questions often survive answers.
"Tell me," she said, "does the sea belong to the shore?"
Tomas frowned.
"No."
"Does the horizon belong to the sea?"
"No."
"Does the sky belong to the horizon?"
The boy thought carefully.
Again he shook his head.
Liora nodded.
Rain moved softly across the water.
A foreign wave arrived.
The shore welcomed it.
The sea remained inscrutable.
As usual.
Over the following months the question spread throughout the Kingdom.
People debated.
Scholars wrote essays.
Merchants exchanged opinions.
The opinions varied in quality.
The rain treated them equally.
Gradually the Kingdom began noticing something it had previously overlooked.
Every story told throughout the centuries had spoken of the rain as though it belonged.
Yet the rain itself had never made such a claim.
The rain fell upon villages.
It fell upon forests.
It fell upon mountains.
It fell upon travellers arriving from elsewhere.
It fell upon strangers.
It fell upon friends.
It fell upon things not yet named.
It crossed every boundary the Kingdom could imagine.
The insight arrived slowly.
Like weather.
One evening Liora climbed a hill above the western valleys.
Greywatch stood in the distance.
The rivers wound through the fields.
The roads stretched toward horizons she would never see.
Rain drifted through the twilight.
For the first time she imagined it continuing beyond every known map.
Beyond every story.
Beyond every world the Kingdom had yet encountered.
Not ending.
Continuing.
Participating in possibilities no one could yet describe.
The thought felt neither frightening nor comforting.
It felt true.
Weeks later Tomas found her again.
The boy carried a notebook.
The notebook carried questions.
This arrangement had become familiar.
"I think I understand."
Liora laughed.
The rain answered upon the leaves.
This may have been agreement.
Or weather.
The distinction had become less important.
"The Kingdom is not special because it possesses the rain."
"No."
"Then why is it the Rain Kingdom?"
Liora looked across the valleys.
Rain shimmered between earth and sky.
The fields glowed softly beneath it.
The rivers carried it onward.
The clouds gathered it again.
Finally she answered.
"Because it learned to notice."
For a moment neither spoke.
The rain continued falling.
The answer pleased her.
More importantly, it pleased the Kingdom.
Which had been learning this lesson since its beginning.
Years later Tomas became a teacher.
When children asked where the rain came from, he offered many answers.
Clouds.
Rivers.
Seas.
Weather.
All were useful.
Then he offered another.
The one Liora had given him.
The rain comes from possibility.
Many adults found this unsatisfactory.
The children rarely did.
For the people of the Rain Kingdom had finally learned something the rain had been teaching all along.
The rain did not belong to the Kingdom.
The Kingdom belonged to the rain.
Not as property.
As participation.
The Kingdom was one way among many ways that possibility became visible to itself.
One horizon among many horizons.
One story among stories.
One world among worlds.
And this diminished nothing.
For what the Kingdom discovered at the end of its long journey was not that it was smaller than it had believed.
It discovered that possibility was larger.
Larger than maps.
Larger than names.
Larger than understanding.
Larger than every horizon that attempted to contain it.
And so the rain continued falling softly upon shore, garden, bridge, mountain, market, valley, road, and sea alike.
Upon the known.
Upon the unknown.
Upon worlds already encountered.
And upon worlds not yet imagined.
Joining them all without possessing any of them.
For the rain had never been the Kingdom's secret.
It had always been the Kingdom's participation.
And beyond every horizon, beyond every story, beyond every world that could yet be spoken,
the rain was still falling.
No comments:
Post a Comment