Pouring

The best smell in the world is the petrichor of impending rain. When the downpour is just about to start--has already started elsewhere--the feeling is so certain. There is no doubt that when it smells like rain, it will rain. But when will it rain? When does the rain actually start? Will it be a deluge? A sprinkle? Will we notice the rain? The olfactory system gives us an early warning, too vague to really serve us. The city of B███ is full of such warnings. From a young age, the children of the town grow up learning to look, listen, feel for approaching trains. “You know a blind woman was hit by a train just last year?” Smell never comes into it. Used to be, the smell of coal lingered for minutes after a train roared through town. Now the only coal in B███ is stuck in the walls, only showing itself in the tinderbox house fires and occurrence of black lung. The town died with the railroad, and like the railroad it limps forward. It ferries people into the city to the southeast. B███ is a city on a hill, and when the rain does finally fall, it washes down the slope, past the coal-filled homes, over the tracks, and into the river. The rumble of the river follows the train cars.

The town recently removed the walk-don’t-walk from the main intersection as you head toward the river. Right at the center of town, due North of the boat ramp, is an old home with the historic high-water mark painted on near the roof. The river rose twenty-two feet the year you were born. Even when it smells like rain, there isn’t much you can do when the water laps at the second floor. 

    Homes are full of warnings. The board games have minimum age requirements. When you’re inundated, it's easy to miss. Is the ceiling sagging from a loose finishing nail or is the roof about to buckle? You can’t trust your nose, a neighbor’s barbeque could easily be a house fire. Sometimes the warning is small as an odd apology when you walk into the foyer with rotting fruit on the windowsill. Even when the youngest kid is old enough to know better, Mr. Yuck stays on the Windex. 

Warnings have a way of outlasting their lives, like children’s heights penciled on the kitchen wall. Like the mildew growing stronger down the stairs to the basement. Like expired cans of food at the bottom. Like the shower door opening while you’re inside. A justification and apology when they get in even though they said they wouldn’t. 

    Sometimes you remember a warning when it’s too late, when they’re already in the shower with you, when you’re trapped at their house, when they push you to your knees, when █████████████ on you, when they tell you to ███ their ██, when hot water is blocking your nose, and you can’t breathe, and they stand you up, and they ask-without-giving-an-option, they turn you to face the corner, it hurts ██████████████████, pain is a warning that something is wrong, you remember that water causes ███████, you try not to cry, they make █████████████████████, they call you ████████████████, and you notice your knees are skinned, you wonder if your boyfriend will notice your skinned knees, you try to make it okay, you look in the mirror afterwards, then they want you to make dinner, and they do it again the next day, and they tell you not to tell anybody, they tell you to put ██████████ your mouth, they give up ███████████████████████████, you’re still bleeding ████████, when ████████ when ██████████ when they coo over you when they say ██████ when they ████ with you when they come to your house when ████████ on your bed and you cry when they try to ██████████ again whenever you shower ever again when they talk about █████████████ when they █████ whenever you’re sleeping whenever you’re home alone whenever you have somebody over whenever you look at the ceiling when your boyfriend notices your skinned knees.

    It goes down the drain. The rain dies down, it quiets down, it dries up. All you see is shower fog. The only evidence is mildew and a scar. You don’t remember it all; it washes away. In the morning you crush garlic for their eggs. The clove’s last and most useless plea, the smell of allicin makes you sick. You don’t feel well so you have a Xanax for breakfast. You’ve never had Xanax before. 

    It’s over eventually, you go back home and you survey the damage. The mildew lingers, the windows are broken, the siding is coming off. The roof caved in during the storm and nobody was home to fix it. The finishing nail is still loose. The rain comes and goes, pulling down shingles, pesticides run off, roadkill floats through the woods, past the train tracks, down to the river’s edge. It’s musty there, the rain kicks up the decaying leaves in the riverbed, it smells loamy, it’s natural, it’s polluted, it’s been cleaned up. A fog sits over the river, a smell still hangs in the air, the sky is still dark. The rain is gone; the children’s heights are still penciled on the kitchen wall. They sit there, right there, right in the center of it all.