The Rainbow on the Stairs
The rain stopped all at once, and the sky turned warm. Otis climbed two cloud steps and shook the water from his hands. Beside him, Mo pushed through the mist, slow as always, his olive shell shining wet. The air smelled like rain on warm stone. Then Otis stopped. A small rainbow lay across the stairs, no wider than a gate. It had red, and gold, and a blue so soft it was nearly white. "Mo," he said. "Look at this."
Otis walked into it. The light went over his arms and over his knees. It smelled like wet grass and clean wind, and it made Mo's shell look like honey. Otis wanted to keep it. He wanted it on the cloud by his bed, so he could see it at night. He cupped his hands around the gold part and lifted. His hands came up holding nothing but damp air. Mo blinked his slow eyes and waited beside him.
Otis found a dip in the cloud where rain had pooled. He carried the water back, careful, both hands under it. He tipped it through the rainbow and watched. The water came out plain. It smelled like rain and nothing more. Otis set it down and sat on the step. "Stay a little longer, little rainbow," he said. Mo settled near him, flippers tucked, in no hurry at all. The mist moved past them both like slow warm smoke.
Otis tried once more. He opened his jacket wide and stepped sideways, hoping to fold the colours inside like a leaf. The red slid over the cloth and off again. It did not come. Otis sat back down. He was not cross. He was only thinking. The rainbow did not move away, and it did not come closer. It simply lay there across the stairs, glowing quietly, the way a cat lies in a square of sun.
So Otis stopped reaching and started watching. There was more in it than he had thought. A green he had never seen. A thin band of orange, like the edge of toast. When the wind came up the stairs, the whole rainbow leaned, then straightened. It smelled of rain again, that cool sweet smell. Mo breathed beside him, slow in and slow out. Otis matched his breathing to it without meaning to, and the time went by softly.
After a while the blue grew faint. Then the green. The sun had climbed higher and the wet clouds were drying, and the rainbow was turning into light again. Otis felt it in his chest, small and quiet. "Stay a little longer, little rainbow," he said. It stayed a little longer. He watched the gold thin out across Mo's shell until it was only shell, olive and tan and wet, with one bright drop running down it.
Then it was gone. The stairs were just stairs, white and soft and ordinary. Otis sat still. He did not feel like running. Mo leaned his old head against Otis's knee, and Otis put his hand on the warm top of it. The smell of rain was still there, in the cloth of his sleeves, in the air, in the steps under them. He thought that was a good thing to be left with.
Below them, far down the stairs, something grey was gathering. It curled slowly upward, soft as wool, filling the low places. Otis knew that smell. It was the smell from before the rain. He leaned over and watched it climb, patient as a tide. "Stay a little longer, little rainbow," he said, to nobody, to tomorrow. Then he yawned. Mo was already turning himself around, flipper by flipper, pointing down the long white stairs toward home.
Otis climbed onto Mo's shell and lay along it with his cheek against the cool ridge. Mo started down, one step, then one step, then one step. The mist came up to meet them and went over them like a blanket, and it smelled of rain on its way. Otis's eyes closed. He felt the slow rocking of each step beneath him. Somewhere below, quietly, the first small drops began to fall on the soft white stairs.
