"Looks like rain." The man said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Yeah," his neighbor drawled, savoring his words as if he was savoring a tender bit of steak. "We've been needing rain for nigh on six months now. If it doesn't rain soon, people are just gonna up and leave."

The man wasn't listening. "Rain means only one thing to me...the rainbow that comes afterwards." He glanced over to where his neighbor had been standing but the old man had already gone back to his house and his shade. "Stupid jerk!" The man yelled after the neighbor.

Turning his attention back to his project, he began to get ready for the rainbow. Ever since he could remember, he had waited for this chance. Now, after all these long, dry, stinking years his dream was coming true. "What do I care if the people leave or if the animals die. When I get a hold of that gold, I'm buying a one way ticket to paradise and nothin's gonna stop me!"

Looking back to the sky, he scanned the gathering stormclouds, then continued his preparations. The sky flashed and the man jerked his eyes skyward. There before him, close enough for him to touch, was the rainbow! Shaking his head in disbelief, he looked again. The rainbow was still there. He glanced at the sky, yet saw no rain. Looking at the rainbow again, the man couldn't believe his luck; the end of the rainbow had landed in his neighbor's yard...and before the storm had even started.

Without realizing the oddity of this occurrence, the man grabbed his pack and jump over the fence, raising up a cloud of dust from his neighbor's yard. Wasting no time he began to climb the rainbow, going higher and higher until his head was in the clouds. After what seems to be hours, the man saw a bright golden light emitting from the far end of the cloud carpet. His heart jumped and he began to shake, then he stepped from the rainbow onto the clouds.

"Finally, after all these years, I'm gonna get out of here!" He screamed with delight. "All I have to do is reach for the light and..."

His neighbor sighed. "You know," he told the dead man, "you really should have waited until payday." Rolling up the rainbow, tucking it under one arm and the pot of gold under the other, the neighbor made it back to his house just as it started to rain.