The Rainbow Cannon, by Robert P. Vermillion, Jr. — Page 4 of 5
The Rainbow Cannon
4…THE REASONS WHY _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ A WHOLE NEW OUTLOOK.
“You know why we're here,” Rudolph said. He wasn't angry, just unsure.
“Yes, we do,” Glen said, looking like he regretted the reason why they were meeting.
Olivia: “You stole the Rainbow Cannon.”
Gina: “That is true. We did.”
Yorick: “But why? Why would you do that, steal from us?”
Gerry: “We didn't want to. Really we didn't.”
Gary “That doesn't explain why you did it. Why did you take the cannon?”
Grant: “We, well, we wanted to know what it was like.”
Bunny: “What 'it'? What taking something that wasn't yours was like?”
George: “No, not that. Making rainbows.”
Isabel: “But that wasn't what you did. It would be like us wondering about making clouds.”
Gus: “And you never wondered that? What doing something different would be like?”
Violet: “No, no. We have, more than once. But we never thought about stealing your Cloud Cannon.”
Gabriella: “I know, and I'm sorry about that. We wanted to know less what doing something different was like and more what doing something... happy was like.”
As they talked about the theft of the cannon and the reasons why the Grays did it, it came to light that after years beyond what anyone could remember of creating heavy and even light gray clouds, they were starting to lose their motivation for it.
Unable to find a new reason to keep making heavy and even light gray clouds, and continuing to be brought down by it, the Grays finally decided to do what none of them had dared ever do – take something. Specifically the Rainbow Cannon.
They went on to say that they thought the magic of making rainbows was inside the cannon and that if they got it, they could create beautiful rainbows with lively colors instead of always heavy and even light gray clouds all the time. They knew it had to be loaded with a ball of rainbow mist, and they hoped that if they made a cloud cannonball, the machine would change it and no one but the Rainbow Big Flops would ever know the difference.
And that got to them, that they were doing wrong against the Rainbows. But their feelings about making heavy and even light gray clouds all the time were strong, and they wanted to do anything they could to make those dark feelings go away.
Rudolph: “But you know now that it didn't work that way. Why didn't you stop after the first gray-bow?”
Glen: “We didn't want to believe that things wouldn't go the way we thought. We couldn't let go.”
Olivia: “It's been at least ten storms since you took the Rainbow Cannon. When were you going to start admitting that no matter how many times you tried, you could never produce a true rainbow?”
Gina: “I started thinking it after about the third time, but it's like Glen said. We couldn't let go.”
Yorick: “I'm sorry things didn't work out the way you wanted, but you don't need to feel brought down about it. What you're doing is very important.”
Gerry: “What do you mean, 'very important'?”
Gary: “Making rain. The world needs it. The plants here can't grow without it. The animals here can't survive without the plants. Everything you can see from the grass to the mountains glows because your clouds feed and cleanse them.”
“Is... is that... true? Do we really help things?” Grant said, really starting to feel bad about taking the cannon and wishing he could undo it.
“Yes, of course you do,” Bunny said, putting an arm around Grant.
George: “I... well, we... never thought of it like that.”
Isabel: “Besides, there's also this – if you don't do what you do, making clouds, we can't make rainbows.”
Gus: “So... without us there would be no rainbows?”
Violet: “No rain, no rainbows. It's as simple as that.”
“I never looked at it like that. None of us did,” Gabriella said, taking Violet's hands in hers, suddenly finding herself in possession of a whole new outlook on the world, their work and their own lives.
Copyright ©2015 Robert P. Vermillion, Jr. All Rights Reserved.