Everything Rains

It is on days like these that I ask myself what the point of living is, days when it rains men and women. I will never get used to the sound of bones breaking. First is the scream of those who are falling to their deaths, because that was their destiny, and then that popping sound, like old branches. Yesterday it was raining wolves. So many wolves that we are sorted for the winter. It is up to God what the next rain brings. This is why we call them the tears of God.

Where does God take all of these men and women and wolves and elephants from? One day I have to tell you about that time it rained elephants or about that time with the whales. Imagine mountains falling from the sky. There are those who have faith in God the Rainmaker and the Destroyer. When it rains something big, they run out of cover and hope to get squashed and die. Maybe I will join them one day, run out and hope that a man or a woman, I am not fussy, smash me into death. I will just be one more splatter.

The problems come after the rains. If we leave the corpses be, they rot and we get sick. So we need to clean up after every rain. I have reached the point where I cannot even distinguish men and women or men and animals after they’ve fallen. It’s just something I either eat or bury. We do tend not to eat men and women. It does not make sense, but some of us still feel as if we were eating ourselves. I don’t know, dead or alive is all the difference there is.

Given the situation, we never lack food. As long as we realise it’s started raining and find shelter promptly, then we are in for a feast. If we realise too late, we become potential food ourselves. It is what it is. As I said earlier, the only difference between us and the raining people is that we are alive. When that difference disappears, we are all the same: dead meat.

We are all meat in the end, this is what I believe.

I remember I had this friend. She would always say, come on, there’s meat and meat. And I would say, yes, dead meat and alive meat, but still meat. And she would say, come on, we are not only food, are we. And she would wink and bend and push her shoulder inwards to expose her breasts. Just more meat. She was definitely meaty.

I said was, you must have noticed, because she isn’t anymore. We were by the beach, surrounded only by sand or sea, no shelter. It was stupid, we both knew that, but maybe we felt like we just wanted to live a little.  It started raining snakes and men. Sometimes God is simply having a laugh. We didn’t know where to run, towards the land to find some cover or towards the sea, hoping to swim deep enough before having to catch our breath. A massive python crashed into her, and then a big man followed. All three together seemed one massive splattered creature. I was untouched. I remember collecting her breast and eating it raw. To prove a point maybe, who knows. That was the first and last time. I was sick for a week.

No one knows who these men and women are that fall from the sky. And I believe no one needs to know: why would you want to be acquainted with the dead? As soon as we see them starting to rain down on us, we already know that there is only one destiny for them. We have at least a couple of choices: we can just stand there and die, or find cover.

Once I did try to die. I just stood there during a rain. It was horses. I knew a horse would have killed me properly. I have always liked horses. But every single horse missed me. Again, as if rain could not touch me. This is the problem with large animals: somehow there is more distance between them, they miss. So I survived, even though I almost drowned in horse blood while screaming at God. I cannot remember what I said.

Then one day a woman came amongst us. She came very slowly, because her leg was destroyed. She claimed it was because she had fallen from the sky and her leg had mended that way, like a broken brunch. No one believed her. No one had ever heard of anyone ever surviving the raining. She said she had landed in the sea over something and this something had somehow managed to save her. No one could believe that anything could stop the speed of someone falling from that height. No one believed her. No one helped her take cover during the next rain. Nor the following one.

Then one day it was raining cats. I hid in a nice cave I had often used, because I always stay around the same areas, like everyone, we don’t move around much, otherwise we die. And there she was in my nice cave. I felt like pushing her out, just to test her lack. She read my intentions on my face, because she started shaking and pulling away. Don’t worry, I told her. I won’t. Thank you, she said.

After a while I looked at her and all I could see was meat. What was the point of wondering whether she was lying or not? She wasn’t really hurting anyone, was she? She is just meat like me. Even if she had survived once, she would eventually die, like everyone else.

You didn’t rain, did you, I said. I don’t know what she read on my face because I didn’t know myself what I was feeling. No, she said. I didn’t. I see, I said. No, she said. I don’t think you do. Look at us, where I come from it’s the same. We keep looking at the sky so much that our necks are all bent. I have heard stories of men and women that looked at the sky ages ago, praying to the gods for rain. And look at us now, we swear at God and we hope it doesn’t rain on us. What do you do in the morning before going out of your hide? You look if it’s raining. You look at yesterday’s blood and flesh that you haven’t cleaned properly. You look up, defeated. Is this life?

Do you expect me to say this is no life, I said. This is the only life we have. We didn’t choose this life, but it’s the life that has befallen us. From the day we were born, death falls from the sky. We didn’t choose this life, but it’s the life we have.

Maybe you are right, she said, but shouldn’t we make the best of it? Yes, we are, I said, we do our best to survive. No, I want to live, not survive, and I want everyone else to live too. I want them to wake up tomorrow and have no blood to clean. I want everyone to go out tomorrow and enjoy their day without looking up. Is this why you did it, I said. Yes, she screamed, I wanted people to know that miracles are possible.

Did you do that to your leg yourself? I asked, even though I knew the answer. Yes. I made sure I did a decent job, because I thought the worst it looked, the more believable the lie. I knew no one would believe me, but I had to try. Yes, I said. You did try and you were right: no one believed you. But what you did, what you did is more than meat normally does. You destroyed your meat so people would believe. You may be sick in the head, but it was nice. You are not just meat after all.

And so there are days when I ask myself what is the point in living, but then I look at her, I stroke her leg, I even manage a smile now and then. I look at her and I remember we are not only meat and there is dead meat and there is alive meat. Even if miracles don’t happen, but we can still live anyway, cannot we.