Send Down the Rain

by Charles Martin

“Not really. ’Round here it goes from just plain hot, to Africa hot, back to Mexico hot, then mildly Nicaraguan warm and back to Sahara hot again.”

I put my arm around her. “The dead have already forgiven the living.”

I stared back through the years. “Hate is a powerful weapon. But it is powerless when it comes to cutting chains off the human heart.”

“I’d seen what evil could do. Evil never gave itself for anyone. It takes what it doesn’t own. Holds your head under the water. Rips your head off your neck and dangles it from the city wall. Evil dominates. Controls. Eradicates. Evil is a sniveling punk, and if you let it inside you then you spew hatred, which is just another name for the poison we drink hoping it’ll hurt someone else.”

“But not love. Love rushes in where others won’t. Where the bullets are flying. It stands between. Pours out. Empties itself. It scours the wasteland, returns the pieces that were lost, and it never counts the cost.”

“Love walks into hell, where I sit in chains, where the verdict is guilty, grabs you by the heart, and says to the warden, ‘Me for him.’”

nothing that happens here today changes the fact that love heals the shattered places.”

Sometimes I stand on the beach and cry for no reason. No reason at all. Allie found me one afternoon and asked me why. I said, “The place where the tears come from is full again.” After not being able to cry for most of my life, I cry now at the drop of a hat. And, to be honest, I like it.

“Fire can be a comfort when you’re lonely.”

“For giving me what I needed.” He swallowed and dug his hand into the package. “And not what I deserved.”