The Smell of Rain

You look out the window and, not for the first time, think about how wrong the weather forecast was.

They could get it right every day, of course. After all, they’re the ones who set the ambient conditions across Station H. They could predict the scattered showers down to the last raindrop if they wanted.

But they still get it wrong from time to time, perhaps to give some sense of comfort, of normality. Weathermen got the forecast wrong before the Shift, and so they should continue to do so. They wore bright ties and fake smiles before, and so they will go on. You sometimes wonder if it’s healthy to try and keep the past alive when so much has changed.

Today, the tree-lined avenue generated on the other side of the glass is experiencing a downpour, simulated branches drooping with the weight of water and puddles gathering on the fictitious pavements. Before all this, you’d have grumbled and pulled on layers of waterproofing, wielded your umbrella like a weapon. You’ve always hated rain.

The forecaster had promised blue skies and light breezes through his gleaming white teeth – “perfect for putting your washing out.” You can’t really go out, obviously, but then you can’t do your own washing, either. Not enough water for that.

It’s stupid, but you miss doing your own laundry, hanging your own clothes and sheets up on a bright day. The cool of damp fabrics smelling of a scent you chose, the methodical work of shaking out and pegging up, the sun on the back of your neck and the trill of blackbirds in your ears. The only blackbirds now are in the Vault.

You find yourself burning at the thought, anger and embarrassment mingling together – how can you miss doing laundry? You’re lucky to have your regulation shirts bleached to oblivion and pressed so sharp they could cut you. You’re lucky to have the fake wrong weather forecasts. You’re lucky to be alive.

And no doubt some people like the efforts to carry on as normal, to chat about the imaginary weather as they pass along the underground corridors, to pretend at the day-to-day uncertainties and laugh at the weather forecaster’s mistakes. For you it’s grating, an unnecessary reminder of everything you’ve lost.

You look across your apartment – a grandiose word for the pod you’re in – across the little rectangle of floor to the fake washing machine. You put the clothes in and they disappear into the system, same as your meals appear out of the tiny pretend microwave and the weather appears through the tiny pretend window. A mockery of normality, adults playing house.

You ought to be getting to work. Your window is showing the rush of people on their way already, scurrying between the trees and bickering with wind-blown umbrellas. They’re quite realistic. A woman in lycra jogs along, her trainers splashing in the puddles and ruining people’s carefully preserved suits. Above, the clouds are solid grey, the kind that won’t shift for days. The worst kind of weather, you always said.

Now you don’t seem able to draw your eyes away from it, the muted quality of the light, the raindrops racing each other down the glass. And the sound – steady and constant on the surface, but when you really listen, there are so many layers: the patter on the tarmac, the way it chatters through the leaves of the trees. The drip and plop of it falling from branches into puddles, the trickle from gutters, the rush of roadside rivulets into drains.

You wonder what it’s really doing outside. Not raining, you know that much for sure. The seas boiled off not long after Earth’s orbit changed.

It had been a shock. The world could have ended in so many ways; you’d had your money on global warming or a supervolcano. So the discovery of a rogue planet on a trajectory to pass close to Earth caught everyone off guard. A lot of people had assumed it would just hit, and that would be the end of everything. Instead it swept Earth up with its gravitational pull, shifting its orbit forever.

Sometimes you think annihilation would have been better than this – a chance, but a miserable chance. A chance to dig down, to gather what water you could, to preserve something of the living Earth before it was scorched away by a sun that grew larger day by day. A chance to stave off the inevitable.

You close the curtains on the rain. It used to get you down before – the grey and the cold – but now it stings. You’d always avoided feeling the rain on your skin, always stayed inside and frowned out at the downpour. How stupid, how incredibly stupid.

Now you lie back on the bed, close your eyes and listen to the rain. How wonderful it would be to step out into it and get drenched to the skin. You imagine yourself out on the streets back home, uncharacteristically umbrella-less as the thunder rumbles around you. You’d know there was no way to make it home in time to avoid it, but you’d run anyway – run as the first drops catch you, spots of cold on your hands and cheeks and shoulders. And then the real rain would come, heavy and inescapable, and still you’d run – pound your way through the rain smell and cold and many-layered sound until your clothes chafed wet and the water was running down your arms. Until you were so wet you’d get no wetter. And still you’d run, you’d sprint into the storm so the raindrops only hit you faster.

You open your eyes. The sound of rain still plays through the curtains, but you know it’s a recording. It will never be anything more than a recording. And you should be getting to work through the dry, safe corridors away from the heat of the sun. You shouldn’t be dwelling on the past. On what could have been and will never be again.

You move away from the faux-window, across the tight little apartment that smells of clean. But you don’t go to the front door.

You step into the tiny bathroom, slip in your coins to use the whole day’s water ration in one go. The shower hisses on, and you can almost imagine the cloudburst.

Dressed in your regulation shirt and slacks, you step into the ice-cold shower and bask in an imagined storm. The water drums against your skull, soaks through the thin fabric of your clothes. You stand and breath in the feeling of cold water on your skin until you shiver. It doesn’t smell of rain, but nothing ever will.