Folks,

Lucky you, I have resisted breaking into a deeply felt chorus of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen". I am just too pooped. Is it possible that there are actually more than 3,000 crumbling steps climbing back up from the archives when I know I counted 3,000 going down? There must be. Before my torch blew out, I noticed that the bats had fortified their end of the gloomy vaults and they were now using the safety of their ragged pile of boxes, bones and alligator hides to sally forth into the rat's area where they have been robbing the huge rodent's nests of little, naked rat babies. Even though they can have new babies in just 3 weeks, this has really rubbed the rats the wrong way. They have taken to defecating and urinating up stream when the bats go bathing. It looks like there is a big battle brewing.

Yes, you are all lucky blighters... if not quick studies. I have offered to stop posting my own stories if someone would post one of their own. Thanks to Bizarre/Stickman, whomever, you have been let off the hook for a long time, however, tonight nothing new has been posted so you leave me no choice. Here is episode 1 to be followed by about five more good reasons to start typing your story tonight.


Just One Drop,
Episode One
By: JRT
Original HWH
Page 3
5/27/01

It had been a hot, muggy week across the length and breadth of modern Britain. Today, a welcome cold front began edging its way across the sceptered isle.

High over one small village, near an air base made famous during the Battle of Britain, raindrops are beginning to form. From molecules to specs, from specs to droplets, then from droplets to small drops they form. The tiny drops of moisture begin to grow and grow, getting heavier and larger, until they can no longer remain suspended in the cooler air.

Some drops now begin to fall. Many will continue to fall all the long way to earth as rain. Some drops will not. Nature will determine the outcome.

Look there. One particular drop has formed and is beginning its rapid journey earthward. If we watch this, glistening, tear shaped drop, and follow its progress it would just now be descending out of cloud and we might begin to see the crazy-quilt design of rural England come sharply into view. Shortly, there are towns and villages, large farms, secondary roads and big houses discernable. The giant airbase, now mostly in disuse, sprawls broadly to our left.

Below, and to our right, we see the little village taking more distinct shape. First, we recognize the spire of a church. Then, as we continue to plummet, some smaller houses with brownish roofs come into focus. Directly below us we notice a little park-like area. There is something large and stark white at its grassy-green center. It is this big, white shape that our little raindrop is speeding directly toward.

The single drop of moisture strikes a huge, marble head at terminal velocity and bursts into smaller drops. The separated drops come together in a groove carved in the cold stone and begin to trickle down what we will recognize as the pure-white forehead of a young man. The statue is fashioned entirely from one huge block of marble and depicts someone in old wartime flying gear. There is a pair of old-style flying goggles poised upon the snow-white forehead and rest just above the forever to be furrowed brow.

It is this feature that our raindrop follows to drip quickly from each furrow of the cold, hard brow to another. Then on it runs along a four-inch eyebrow and finally it curves around the lid of the eye to the very edge of the eye itself. There we see it pause in the corner of an eye that will always gaze skyward. The little drop begins to tremble and then it drips over the edge.

For one brief moment, if you and I were watching closely, we might well have sworn that we saw the young aviator shed one pure, crystal, clear tear. Then the little drop was gone.