Temples Of Solitude: The Rain Makers (Deszczowce)

There was a couple of old trees,

far up on a hill.

When I was little I use to wonder about them,

once I grew up a little I used to wander towards them.

It was a perfectly calm place,

be it winter or summer.

There were no troubles there,

so I had a lot of fun.

I used to make proper little bonfires,

out of the branches that fell from the wind.

I tried to figure out how the world works,

from up there.

I figured,

it wasn't working very well.

I grew up in a country with protests,

shortages, and probably a lot of corruption.

When I was eight, the Chernobyl disaster struck,

people were told to stay home behind concrete walls.

I remember people reminding each other not to pick up mushrooms,

as they had something to do with radiation.

There was a strange man on TV Anatoly Kashpirovsky,

and people were pretending that he was healing them.

Some said that after they warmed up the gunk in their Russian watches by holding them in their hand,

it would be him that would restart them, other said he was sharpening their razors or something.

All too weird for me, so I'd slowly climb my way up that enormous hill to my Rain Makers

and stare at the world from up there.

I came up with the name Rain Makers,

they looked like they were scratching clouds.

One time I brought a slice of refrigerated home made up there pizza up there,

my mom made it the day before, it had olives.

It was too cold to eat it right,

it was a shame to eat it cold like that.

So I started a proper little fire,

I always had matches with me.

And I somewhat-believe it was me who invented a sure way to start a fire,

you had to start with twigs that were just about the size of the match.

And then sprinkle in larger, and larger, and larger bits,

until the fire was cheerfully crackling.

I sharpened a stick that stabilized the slice,

and started heating it up.

Just the moment I did that,

rain came, the ground was already somewhat muddy - it was a rainy day.

I looked around and figured I should build a shelter,

to keep myself dry.

I easily moved a load of mud above a thick root,

and scooped a place for myself to perch in.

Few more sticks, and some downed branches with leaves on them,

and I had a waterproof stealth shelter worthy of a big fat rabbit.

I hunkered down into the hole,

and ate my slice of pizza that went from tasting odd due to being cold...

To now tasting and smelling weird,

as I was using leaves to keep the fire going.

I had no idea it would make my slice smell and somewhat even taste odd,

but I enjoyed it.

The rain stopped,

and so so I slowly started making my way back down to the village.

Always somewhat worried if any geese want to hiss at me again,

and if perhaps I could find something interesting in the endless boxes at the garage.

The geese were a huge problem for me,

to make things worse they would always hang out right in the spot that I needed to cross to get back.

Every adventure, as you can imagine, and even if you can't,

always, always without a fail, has some fantastic cherry on top.

Once I begun running away from hunters,

that were walking my way, and before I knew it...

I guess I tricked myself into thinking they were following me,

but get this, there needed up being a small fire, right where they disappeared into the woods.

I was watching them from the safety of my village home,

through my high powered monoculars.

My grandpa asked if I knew anything about the fire,

yup, I snapped back, and reported that the hunters did it, no question about it.

They probably threw a cigarette on the ground,

and the leaves caught fire.

Another time, I kid you not,

I ended up resting a bit, beneath an ice sheet!

The small river was high when the top froze,

but when I got there the river was down to a trickle

And it had a proper and sturdy,

roof of ice over it, it was magical!

One time,

I was warned to stop expeditioning up to my trees.

Because the wheat filed workers that ran combines up there,

found some creepy Chupacabra Gollum type creature.

I quickly put my detective hat on,

sharpened some mean sticks for protection, and mounted an urgent expedition to find more evidence of the creature.

On my way up there I encountered one of the villagers,

and he had some more info on what has now become a village legend, creepy talk of the town really.

Apparently they discovered the place where the was hiding,

and watching the village from.

They assumed it was some genetic anomaly,

because it lived in the cold ground by one of the trees up there, and it wasn't man sized...

"Oh!",

I exclaimed suspiciously.