I've always liked the rain. The way it drips down the window of my old Manehattan apartment… Running all the way down to my windowsill, where it collects, seeping into the wall.
I have my writing desk facing that window for a reason. It helps me focus, helps me to write my best.
But sometimes, it's still not good enough.
Like tonight. It's three in the morning, and I'm still staring at my typewriter, frozen in time thanks to the tyranny of the blank page.
What use are ideas if you can't write them down? A question asked many times, only to be answered with screaming inner thoughts and the pitter-patter of the rain. Celestia knows I've had my fair share.
I've always asked myself why I don't try hard enough to do anything else. I could have been a successful DJ, like Vinyl Scratch. Perhaps I could have been a hero, even, like Twilight Sparkle, bless her soul. But no, I write. I write stories that not everypony enjoys. I write stories that nopony will remember once they've finished reading.
And yet, I find joy in these stories. Much like thirsty crops, whom have received water at last thanks to the rain, I feel relieved. I suppose that's the upside of writing things nopony will ever see.
How does one react, however, when the rain stops falling? When the blank page stares back at you, as if saying you will never feel that joy again?
When the crops begin to suffer a drought, how do they feel? Much the same, I'd assume. Lonely. Scared. Perhaps… worthless. And then they slowly die, because the rain they so wish for never comes.
My last stories left me feeling that way. As if I'd never amount to anything. I could already see the newspaper headlines, chanting my shame. Like the roar of thunder, growing louder and louder until…
Silence. Nopony even glanced at them. They simply judged it by the first words, throwing aside the possibility that the rest could be beautiful. And I question myself, over, and over.
Did I do something wrong? What could I have done to make the story better? What do the readers want?
These questions, maddening, horrible questions… Like flies they buzz inside my skull, growing larger and fatter as they feast upon my leftover sanity, driving me to the brink…
I almost did it last night.
The knife, sharp edges looking so tempting. The promise of sweet, eternal freedom, if only I were to place it against my forehoof. Freedom from my innermost thoughts, my demons.
My daughter… My angel. She saw me, admiring the shine of that blade and the beads of my blood on it, and with tears in her eyes, begged me not to leave her. And then the clouds broke once more.
I hugged my little filly. If I were to be so selfish as to do such a thing… She would have had nopony. She would feel the same way as I did.
She deserves so much more than for me to inflict my suffering on her. My little angel…
She made me promise. Promise to never try to leave her like that. Not like her mother.
Her mother… The rainbow to my rain. Even more beautiful than the crisp, bubbling stream, or the loud, crashing waves. It was so long ago that she and I first met.
The day I saw her… That wonderful, wonderful day… She was painting a lovely sunset over a forest. So lifelike that I could almost feel the warmth upon my wings. And when our gazes met… It was like she had been waiting for me.
Her smile was as warm as a fireplace on a cold winter night, yet as gentle as the wings of the butterfly. Her poise as delicate as a flower petal, yet as expressive as nature itself.
I fell in love that day. Many, many months later, we decided to get married. Our daughter was born nine months after. Just as beautiful as her mother. I was the happiest I had been in a long time.
And then the rain itself betrayed me.
The weather ponies had created a storm, a storm much too big to control. It wreaked havoc upon the land, laying low homes, ripping apart families…
So many lives lost that day… I was praying to Luna for each and every single name I heard on the radio.
Eventually, it grew to the point where the weather team had to call in reinforcements… My wife just so happened to be one of them.
I begged her not to go, that feeling of disaster growing in my chest… yet she smiled that beautiful smile and told me she'd be back in the morning.
I found out later that this storm had taken my rainbow from me. It was devastating. It seems the rain can destroy as much as create.
My daughter… She was too young to remember that day. I don't know how she found out. Perhaps it was my fault, a slip of the tongue. Perhaps she found out through one of her school research projects… She always did want to go into weather.
I found her sobbing one day, curled up into a ball so small that I could hold her in a single wing. She was clutching a picture in her tiny hooves. I realized what it was when I curled around her to hopefully grant a bit of comfort. We cried together for a while.
Since then, my daughter has always done her best to bring me the joy her mother did to my life… my little angel is the only reason I am still alive.
And so, I sit here, watching the raindrops fall down my window as she sleeps peacefully in her bed. I can see the beginnings of Celestia's burning sun in the distance. And in the sky lies a rainbow… As if she's still watching over us even now.
I think I can overcome the blank page's tyranny now. I suppose it just took a little rain to help.
I've always liked the rain.
