The Promise

The Dirtpeople despaired of living. Blinded from birth, they toiled in the desert fields, grubbing in the rock-hard soil, harvesting only thorns. Rainstealer stood over them with a whip. If one of the Dirtpeople dared raise his face toward the sun, he felt the brutal lash.

A story circulated among the people. No one knew if it was fable or truth. The story predicted that one day Raingiver would send water from the sky to nourish the soil and produce fruit with curative powers to heal their blindness. Best of all, Rainstealer would dissolve into dust as soon as the drops touched him.

Mercyman believed the story. Whenever he heard Rainstealer move to another part of the field, he lifted his face to the sun and tried to imagine what rain might feel like, how the new fruit might taste, what it would be like to see. At night, when the Dirtpeople were released from their labor to return to their underground burrows at the edge of the fields, Mercyman lifted his face to the darkness and asked Raingiver to send rain.

“You’re crazy!” his father said. “I’ve never seen rain in my entire life.”

“But Raingiver has promised,” Mercyman said. “I believe.”

“How do you know he even exists?”

“I believe.”

His wife, Mercywoman, sobbed when she told him the news of her pregnancy.

“I hate to even bring a child into this world,” she said. “Just knowing how Rainstealer will pierce his eyes with thorns turns my heart to water.”

“We won’t let him blind this child.”

“How do we stop him?” she said. “He will bring his thorns and prick his eyes just as he has done to all of us.”

“Raingiver will stop him.”

“Raingiver this, Raingiver that. I’m sick of hearing about Raingiver!”

“But I believe!”

“I’ll believe when I see this rain you’re always talking about or when he stops Rainstealer from torturing us with thorns.”

The Dirtpeople survived on the thorns. If eaten raw, the thorns tasted sweet but pierced the soft inner flesh of their mouths causing aggravating sores that refused to heal. If cooked, they lost their power to wound but turned slimy and bitter, offering no nourishment to their broken bodies.

Mercyman hated the way the poor food affected his pregnant wife. She grew weaker and sicker by the day. Yet Rainstealer made her labor in the hot fields, using his whip to force her to produce bale after bale of cruel thorns. Her hands bled along with her open back. Mercyman worked twice as hard, trying to put extra thorns in her basked to spare her Rainstealer’s wrath.

One day the sun was especially merciless, beating down on them like a furnace. Mercyman heard his wife utter low moans at regular intervals.

“Are you in labor, my darling?” he whispered.

“Don’t say a word!” A sharp intake of breath told him she was in pain. “I will hide this child from Rainstealer.”

Mercychild was born that night but Mercywoman, so weak from poor food and maltreatment, barely survived. “I’m too weak to hide him!” Her wails spurred Mercyman’s desperation into even more fervent prayer. “Rainstealer will surely find him and prick his eyes as he has done to all of us.”

Raingiver stumbled out into the night and fell to his knees in desperation. “Raingiver,” he prayed. “I believe in you. Help my unbelief.”

The drops confused Mercyman. At first, he thought someone had splashed water onto his face. But the moisture continued, wetting his hair with streams of fresh water that smelled of freedom and blessing.

“Mercywoman!” he jumped to his feet and pulled her out into the rain. “Everyone!” Mercyman shouted in his loudest voice. “It’s raining! Raingiver sends rain.” Screams of astonishment filled the burrows as the Dirtpeople scrambled into the open fields and lifted blinded eyes toward heaven, savoring each precious drop. Praises and dancing erupted.

“What’s going on?” Rainstealer roared. “Get back in your burrows or you’ll feel my lash!”

“Raingiver has answered our prayers,” Mercyman said. He stood on both feet with his head held high, addressing Rainstealer as an equal. “Your reign is over.”

They heard choking gasps. “What’s happening?” Rainstealer’s voice sounded fearful and strangled. “I’m fading away.”

The Dirtpeople cautiously crawled toward the place where Rainstealer’s voice had last been heard. They felt his whip lying on the ground but otherwise no evidence Rainstealer had ever been there. He was gone.

It rained for forty days and nights. The Dirtpeople survived by eating bales of thorns stacked in the storehouse. It seemed the thorns were gentler and less piercing than before; but it may only have been their imagination. At the end of the fortieth night, the rains finally stopped. The Dirtpeople crawled out to the fields and plucked rounded clusters of fruit from verdant vines. Mercyman bit into the fruit and felt a healing warmth surge through his body. He took another bite and saw colors swarm before his eyes. By the end of his third bite, his vision was perfect.

“Eat,” he shouted. “I can see! Take and eat! Eat all of it!”

Mercywoman, almost too weak to chew, jumped to her feet after only one piece. “I’m strong again.” Her arms clutched Mercychild while she pushed more fruit into her mouth. “I’m young and strong and I can see!”

Mercyman bowed in worship. It was truly a day of resurrection.