A Rain of Birds
A Short Story (by Granny Which Witch and plagiarized shamelessly) 
by PS Wright



Published by PS Wright and Splot! Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 PS Wright


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A Rain of Birds


Augustus Deforest liked to walk alone down by the creek. He should never have ought to do that. But Augustus was a strange boy who had strange ways. Sometimes the other kids in town made fun of Augustus. Sometimes the others kids made him so angry, he did other things he ought not. So Augustus Deforest walked alone.
May Beeline liked to wander along the country lanes by herself too. May had been warned that little girls wandering alone tended to get into troubles like being eaten by wolves and poisoned by witches. But May Beeline did not worry her little head about such concerns. She wandered along picking flowers and talking to herself as if she was the only one in the world.
Augustus had noticed May before. Mostly he ignored her and she paid him no more mind than she did any other. But today, Augustus Deforest noticed something more. Today May Beeline was walking right toward him. He had come all around the slippery rocks and right up to the mossy oak where the best cat fishing was to be had. He liked to lay on his belly and dangle a line in the creek and was just as happy when he did not get a bite as when he did. But cat fishing was best done alone on the banks with just the crickets and frogs for company. May Beeline's meanderings had led her right to the path that led to Augustus' favorite laying down rock. She was holding an umbrella and watching the sky intently. Augustus looked up into the bright morning sunlight. There was not a cloud in the sky. "You there, girl, why are you got that there umbrella?" he hollered.
May Beeline looked at him for the first time. "It's gonna rain, of course."
Augustus looked at the sky again, just in case he'd missed one little cloud the first time. But there was naught to see. "Listen girl, there aint a cloud up there. Somebody done lied to you."
May Beeline was used to people not understanding. She said, "I knew you wouldn't believe me. But it is gonna rain. I seen it."
Augustus was not sure if maybe the girl was not a bit touched. "Where'd you see it?"
May touched her temple with one finger. "Same as I see everything."
"Well, I got to get to fishing. You go on now." Augustus figured girls were always going on about pretending and this was probably just more of that.
"I'll not be going along." May looked up into the sky once more and held out her hand in expectation of the first drops. Seeming satisfied with something, May nodded smartly. "If you're wanting the old man what is sitting in that shallows, you best use the bit of baloney on your hook. He don't like the cheese none."
Augustus was annoyed for two reasons. In the first place, he had planned to use the baloney anyway, not being partial to cheese. So now he had to use the cheese, or the girl would think it was her idea but then he might not get the old fella. The second reason we felt annoyed was a bit stranger. "Eh, how did you know that old grey beard was in this shallow and I was gigging for him?" 
May sat down on a large flat rock near his and arranged her skirt to cover her knees. Her bare feet were as dirty as the yard of a chicken coop. She set to washing them off in the creek. "Oh, the old man's been coming to the shallows here to feed for years. Sometimes I bring him a bit of something."
Augustus rolled his eyes. So like a girl to waste food on something that ought to be food. "Now you're chasing him off. Aint no fish gonna come swimming in your dirty foot water, especially whiles you're splashing around."
"He never minded before." May seemed unperturbed. "Gonna rain. You got your shoes on and no galoshes."
"It aint neither. Aint a cloud in the sky. You're plum crazy." Augustus purposely sat with his back to her and baited his hook with a bit of baloney. Careful to hide the hook from the smarty­-pants girl, he cast it out into the larger creek. Maybe grey beard would come for his usual feed and see the bait before he noticed how the girl had mucked up his shallows. At least she wasn't one of those lip slappers that couldn't keep it buttoned up. They sat for good long pace with nothing but the crickets and bugs making a noise while the water slurped and smacked amongst the rocks until both kids pricked up their ears at a distant rumble. 
"See? That's thunder. Any minute now, the rain's coming." May nodded once, certainly.
"It aint no such thing. That's the quarry upriver. They're dynamiting is all. It's gonna scare the fish. Wish them northerners would pack it up and head back the way they come." Just then, Augustus' line jerked. Augustus struggled to keep the fish on his hook. He didn't have one of those fancy rod and reel gigs you seen in the stores. Augustus had learned a trick of tying a willow switch to a hickory stick to get the right combination of flex and heave. He played the stick back and forth and up and down, the willow twitching and bobbing with his every movement. "Oh that grey beard, he's a wily one. He's trying to get himself loose."
"Best to let him then." said May. 
"You crazy girl? I'm bringing this baby home for supper. Me and ma will eat good. You go on and get out of here. Can't you see I'm busy?" Augustus pulled mightily on the hickory stick, dragging the mighty catfish toward the bank. But the old man had been in these waters longer than the boy had been out of his mother's arms. It flipped and dived, taking the hook with it. Suddenly the line went slack in Augustus' hands, but he knew it was a trick. He ran along the rock to get a better angle and pulled it tight again. The cat was trying to cut the line on the sharp rocks. Augustus tried to drag the fish out from under the rock shelf. But he was standing on the wrong side of that argument. When the line was so taught it was singing, Augustus dug in his heels and pulled with all his might. The line snapped. The willow switch sprang back, catching Augustus across the face and splitting his lip. Augustus dropped the rod with a howl.
"Told you." May said.
"Daggit, I done lost my hook. I aint got too many of them." Augustus recovered his rod from the shallows before it could soak up too much water. He twisted a new hook loose from the bib of his overalls where he'd had three of them lined up this morning. He tied it onto what was left of his line and cast it out into the river, all the while casting evil glances at May. 
No sooner did the hook and bait land with a plop, than the sky filled up with a boom so powerful, the trees shook and leaves fluttered loose from their branches. Augustus dropped his pole, but got it back before it could drift off on the river. "What in tarnation was that?" He looked over the way toward the quarry where the Army Corps was dredging up heaven only knew what for their latest building project. 
"Oh that's the dam going I suspect. We probably ought to make sure we're holding on to something."
Augustus screwed up his face at the foolish girl. "The quarry's near half mile from the dam and it aint even on this here part of the river. That was dynamite all right though. Bet they done blew up something and made a right mess of it. Gran's been saying as how the Army's always messing up things that other folks have got to come behind and put right again. Always telling us how we ought to move for our own good and this road or that aint built right and taking away people's homes and farms to put up something or other aint nobody need in the first place. It's a mess alright. Bet you they done blew something up that wasn't suppose to be."
May smiled and nodded as she rose, careful to keep the hem of her dress from the water. "I'm just gonna back up a pace. You ought to take your line out of the river."
"I aint no such thing. I'm catching that old man cat today. If I don't, I'm getting two. I plan to have fried catfish for dinner, and that's that. You can just go on home, if you're scared."
May backed up from the river's edge and tucked her umbrella into a rope she had secured around her waist. "You'll have all the catfish you can eat in a flash."
Augustus ignored the girl and baited the hook one more time. He didn't want to use all the baloney, but that wily old grey beard wouldn't be caught on some moldy old cheese. Augustus tossed the line out into the calm water. The whole river had gone sort of flat. "Aint never seen it so glassy on a summer day." He muttered just loud enough for the girl to hear. 
May had wrapped her arms around a big old elm. "Yep, like the hard calm right before a tornado."
Augustus shook himself all over. "You aint gonna spook me." But the water was draining away, all slow and yet all at once, like someone had just pulled the plug on the bathtub down at the end toward the quarry.
"Just like the Red Sea." May said, just as he was thinking it.
Augustus stared at the receding water. This was not the ocean. The Snake River did not have those kinds of currents. The Snake always ran the same way. Folks could count on the Snake River. It never did fool things like run backwards the way Gran said the Mississippi done once. The Snake ran high; the Snake ran low, but the Snake never ran backwards. Augustus watched until the water had run right off the rocks and back around the bend, leaving fish flopping on the exposed muddy bottom. Frogs and snakes and all manner of critters took off from the suddenly empty river. Augustus saw the old man grey beard stranded in a puddle, much too large to breathe in such a small body of water. The cat had gobbled the baloney and the hook was jammed through its gaping mouth. "I got you. Just you stay there. Here I come."
May called out. "Augustus, don't you go down in there. Augustus, you come back here."
But Augustus was already scrambling down the rocks and squishing through the mud to retrieve his prize. Of all the fish stranded in the muck, grey beard was the biggest, shiniest prize of all. Augustus put his hands on the massive fish, but couldn't hoist him. Never in all his years fishing for the old man, had Augustus ever realized the cat was nearly as large as him and twice as heavy. Grey beard had no intention of being taken and flashed about with his tail and tried to take off the hand of the grubby boy who was trying to dislodge the hook. Augustus heard a sound like slow rolling thunder or a mighty freight train. He spoke his first thought out loud. "Tornado!"
May called out, "Run!"
Augustus left cat and pole and tore for the rocks. He could feel the river bottom vibrating beneath his feet. The thick mud sucked at the soles of his feet, slowing him down. The roar was growing louder, louder than the blood in his own ears. He hit the rocks and began to clamber up. The slippery mud caused him to fall back twice but at last he hoisted himself up atop the very boulder he had been standing on in the first place. He dared a glance back and saw a mountain of brown water bearing down upon him. Caught up in the muddy tidal wave was every farm, homestead, and beast between the quarry and this spot of the river. A chicken squawked and laid an egg before disappearing into the rolling mud. A tractor was racing ahead of the glop, but it was soon swallowed up. Augustus ran for the trees and was up in the branches before the wave reached the bend in the river. "Come on, girl, give me your hand." He reached down for May.
May let Augustus lift her up onto a branch, just as the water overtook their position. There at the top of the wave, paddling for all they were worth, was a boatful of those Army Corpsmen. May waved. "Hey ya fellas, what you got in the boat?"
The Army fellas were right put out. But one of the young ones in the back shouted out above all the roar of the river and the animals and vehicles caught up in it, "We got dynamite here. We gotta keep it dry."
Just then the wave reached its highest point and came crashing down, sending water out of the banks in every direction. The little boat with all the Army fellas struck a rock and tipped up on its bow. The young fella lost his grip on the box as he got dumped into the river. The box flew open and all the sticks of dynamite scattered about. 
Grey beard jumped high up in the water, delighted with his freedom and the return of the river. He tossed his mighty head, throwing the pole right, and then left. The pole struck one of the Army fellas on the head. The Army fella grabbed one of those dynamite sticks and took to striking that old man cat. Now grey beard did not take to being beaten up with a stick of dynamite and figured it was enough like a night crawler for him. He opened up that big old mouth and swallowed it whole, nearly taking the Army fella's hand along with it.
Now as the Snake River flowed back into its proper shape and took up its own path again, houses, trees, and cars were deposited on the bank. And all around, flopping and gaping, were hundreds of fish. May smiled at Augustus. "See? I told you."
Augustus jumped down from the branch and nearly forgot to be a gentleman. "Here, I guess I'm supposed to help you down and all. Now I suppose you’re gonna say you saw that was gonna happen?"
May only smiled and put up her umbrella as soon as he set her back on the ground.
"Now you don't still think it's gonna rain?" Augustus exclaimed. "After all this?"
May said, "I saw it."
Augustus grabbed up an armful of fish and only stopped when he could not hold another. "Durn! Wish I had me a bucket or something. What am I gonna carry these all home in?"
May shrugged. "I'd hurry, if I was you. The rain is getting ready to start."
 "I done told you, it aint gonna rain. That weren't no thunder. It was dynamite. Them Army fellas blew up something they shouldn't ought to have. That's what done blew up the Snake. But it's right again now. So we ought to make the best of it."
That's right when Augustus heard a squawking and a cackling like nothing he had ever heard before. The sun completely went out, light a bulb when the chain's been pulled. Augustus just had time to look up, when it seemed the whole sky was coming down. A dark cloud, so thick and black the sky could not be seen, all full of movement, was heading toward the ground. Augustus put his arms over his head and ducked as the first ugly black bird struck. It caught one fish in its beak and was up in the air with its trophy in a flash. Then another and another struck and took off again. The air was a flapping whirlwind more dangerous than any windstorm that ever swept through. Augustus felt he was being beaten up with a thousand little bats as their wings struck him again and again. He ducked and dodged and just made it to hide in the shadow of the elm where May was using her umbrella as a shield. They huddled together until the birds had plucked the fields clean.
"Ah, there goes all that beautiful catfish. Me and Gran could've eaten for a month on that."
"It hasn't rained yet." May reminded him.
Augustus decided not to tell her anymore that it was not going to. Instead, he said, "Wonder what happened to them Army fellas?"
The birds had almost all flown away with the fish, letting the sun shine down again. But in one area, a small cadre of squawking, angry, birds was squabbling among themselves. One huge bird with wings as wide as a lineman's arms rose up, surrounded by other, slightly smaller birds. Grasped between them was one enormous fish. Augustus could not believe it. "Old man grey beard! Them birds has got my fish. I'll be baked for dinner if I'll let them dirty birds steal my cat!" Augustus started forward.
But May put a hand on his arm. "It hasn't rained yet, Augustus."
Augustus thought for a minute. "You aint been wrong yet." A low rumble rolled across the sky. A strange glow was visible in the distance, like the sky was on fire and dropping its ash on the trees below. The birds that had been sitting in the trees and eating their bounty, began to hop about restless like. "Thunder?"
May smiled, "Rain always follows."
The strange cloud was moving towards them at a tremendous rate. It glittered. Lightning played all through it. It roiled and boiled and poured, inky, all across the sky. "That aint no normal cloud and I don't want no part of any rain that comes of it."
May's smile grew. "You can share my umbrella."
Augustus figured that was a good idea. They huddled under the umbrella and stared at the glomming gloom. Suddenly, a lightning bolt as bright as ten suns shot across the sky, right above their heads. May jumped and Augustus put his arm around her. "Don't you worry. I'm sure you would have seen if it was gonna get you."
A second bolt snapped off a branch high up in a tree and started a small fire. All the birds, startled and confused, took to the sky. They flapped and spun as if drunk. The strange cloud stirred the winds round and round, confounding the dirty birds. Everything dumped by the river was blown around by the wind. Augustus and May clung to the elm tree and to the umbrella and to each other. The largest of the birds were pumping their wings furiously and just making progress out of the danger zone. The hot winds whipped through the trees and drove stinging ash and grit into their eyes and upbraided their skin. But it was gone nearly as quick as it came, leaving everything covered in a fine, sparkly, grit.
"It's sort of pretty." May mused.
"But it still aint rained." Augustus reminded her.
A bird, choked with ash and exhausted from the winds, crashed to the ground. Startled, Augustus and May jumped back toward the safety of the elm's spreading branches. All around, the birds began to drop out of the sky. Black birds, brown birds, fat birds, small birds, birds of every size and color fell all around. May and Augustus could do nothing but huddle under their umbrella and watch the rain of birds.
That is the exact second that a bolt of lightning, the biggest so far, zigged across the clearing sky and struck that big old dirty bird that had stolen the old man right on its behind. The bird let out one single squawk and blew up, sending dirty feathers all around. All the other birds holding onto grey beard let go of a moment, buffeting by the wind from the explosion. Down, down, fell the fish. Without thinking, Augustus put out his hands and caught the cat. The lightning bolt had gone right through the bird and struck the fish, setting off the dynamite and cooking it a perfect crispy on the outside and tender white on the inside.
That night Augustus, Gran, and his new girlfriend May, enjoyed the best catfish they had ever eaten. And May and Augustus told me this story themselves on their twentieth wedding anniversary, so it must be true.


While this story may sound fantastic, much of what has been described here has really happened.
 The Mississippi River really did run backwards, not once, but twice in recorded history. Earthquakes in the New Madrid fault zone caused the disturbance.
Animals, especially birds, have been known to "rain" from the sky due to volcanic action, storms, high winds, human interaction, or even for completely mysterious reasons. Beebe, Alabama experienced a rain of birds in 2010. According to newspaper accounts, hundreds of spangled perch fell in Australia in the same year. The people of Honduras have believed in an annual rain of fish for decades and there appears some scientific documentation of the phenomenon may actually exist. In other times, rains of snakes, frogs, birds, fish, and even eels have been reported.
The Army Corps of Engineers really does use dynamite in many of their projects. In 1927 a huge flood on the Mississippi River led the Corps of Engineers to dynamite a levy.  
Catfish can indeed grow to the size of a young boy. Blue catfish grow up to about 120 pounds and about five feet in length, though that's kind of rare. Blue catfish don't usually live in the Snake River, but they could. Catfish live all over the globe. They have a habit of migrating. They love to live in muddy rivers and can eat almost anything.
I found all these facts on the internet. Bet you can too. Just remember, don't believe everything you read.



This story was based on characters which appear in the book, Flat Fax and the Book of Doors, Illustrated. Granny writes all the characters and settings of her domain. Some of those stories have leaked over to our universe through the Door of Books, which has been opened by Flat Fax. Best to hurry and read them now before it slams shut again. If you enjoyed this free story, consider purchasing your own copy of Flat Fax and The Book of Doors. Other free stories which may leak over to our universe very soon are The Consumption of The Hampires and Pedro and the Poodle. The Legend of the Pricklepeople is available on Smashwords now.
Keep an eye out for Flat Fax and the Book of Doors audible book, coming soon and Flat Fax and the Door of Books, due out sometime this summer.



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