A Pixie from the Eastern Woods

A pixie, a shower of rain and the smell of the earth

 



She must have been ten or twelve, and from the local village. She was watching me as I scurried up along the hilly path.

Suddenly I tripped over a stone and she burst out giggling.

“Always in a hurry aren’t you? Scared of the black clouds in the sky, are you”?

Yes, the sky was threatening. It is going to rain any moment, the air was getting sultry.
I didn’t reply and kept climbing the hill. I must reach the town at the top before it begins to pour.

Like a mountain goat jumping from one mound to mound she followed me..

“It will be the first rain of the year, won’t you like to get wet in it? You are already wet with your sweat”.
Yes, I know that, I have been sweating the whole day, and I am smelling and I don’t like it.
 

“Slow down, Wait and watch how the clouds play hide and seek over the mountain”..
I have no time for that and  must reach the top. I increased my pace, but she would not stop following me.

Suddenly it began to rain and I ran to shelter myself under the canopy of a big tree.
She jumped over a large stone, looking up the sky she extended her arms as if to catch a whole load of rain drops. The rain hitting her face trickled down like beads of pearls.  Her thin frock, wet and transparent and clinging to her nascent young body spoke of a promise yet to fulfil. For the first time I really looked at her, she looked very pretty.

The rain let up the way it came.

She came running towards me and said.

“Now the leaves on the trees will look greener, flowers will be brighter! Don’t run, look at all the flower along the road and smile, they will smile back at you”.

She shook a large Arum leaf, drops of rain water rolled like a ball and broke into thousand little gems. She giggled again.

Jumping to go she shouted back-
“Smell the air now it smells so good”!
- and like a pixie she vanished in the woods.