A Spark of Hope

There was a drought in a city without a name.

The drought lasted for almost a year and everything started dying. The citizens were trying to conserve water in every way they could, but one by one everything started to fall, piece by piece, brick by brick, one person after another, all dead.

The first ones to depart from life were the plants. Once the scorching heat of the sun was too unbearable for them, they started to wither and die. Their leaves broke into fragments that are soon carried away by the waterless air.

And then the animals started to collapse. People starved.

Every citizen of that city was scared, they started to pray, they started to believe that there could be miracles, they started to ask for God’s help. But days and soon months passed, still there was no sign of water.

The people’s faith began to waver.

They began to give up. That’s when they began to die. And then people began to grieve, their hope diminished more and more. The moment their spirit and faith left their bodies, they did too.

But, there was one boy who kept believing, a boy who kept his faith hard and unbreakable. He brought his blue umbrella to school every day for he was convinced that it was going to rain.

He looked ridiculous, he was teased and bullied, yet he kept bringing his bright blue umbrella.

And then, the air started to feel different. It started to feel damper and damper each day. A spark of hope returned in everyone’s eyes. The boy’s classmates started to bring umbrellas too.

And soon the whole school was influenced into bringing umbrellas every day. This empowered more schools to follow their footsteps. More people began to have hope, they began to believe again. They brought umbrellas with them.

People regained their faith, they regained their strength, they began to live again.

And then one day, a few drops splattered against the hard concrete soil. Within seconds, those few drops turned into a multitude of droplets of water.

And then, the sky began to leak with a generous downpour, a heavy rain showered the nameless city. The once dried up soil began to drain the water affectionately, consuming in life once more. People rejoiced and celebrated.

The boy with the blue umbrella was grinning, his smile was from ear to ear, his eyes shining brightly, his head looking up at the sky. He was just standing in the middle of the street, listening to the sound of droplets that hit his blue umbrella.

 One of his friends saw and asked him: “How did you know that it was going to rain soon?”

 “I didn’t,” the boy replied. “But I did know who God was.”

The people regained life even before it rained, they took back the strength and faith that was once lost. They remembered who God was.

They believed.