The sky is heavy with the promise of rain,
the smell of petrichor filling the air.
Two shadows sit quietly under cover,
waiting for the first drop to hit the parched earth.
It’s quiet, a soft proclamation,
THE SKY SAYING HELLO TO THE EARTH
a long-lost friend.
Contact established, a second drop follows,
then thousands more.
Soon The Sky darkens,
clouds suffocating the blue
reducing the world to black and white,
The Twilight Zone coming to life.
The clouds riot,
The wind whipping and screaming,
No longer a soft proclamation,
But a declaration of war.
The shadows shiver,
emerging from the darkness.
A mother and child,
emaciated, barely alive.
Rain pelts their skin,
burning, stinging,
agony where the droplets connect,
but they have no choice
desperation driving them,
half-dead things.
A rare commodity, water,
more valuable than diamonds.
This rain is different,
fire against their skin,
flame instead of water.
Death instead of salvation.
WHAT WAS HOPE,
for a brief, glorious moment,
is now a nightmare,
damnation.
Their skin blisters,
then melts,
their screams failing to find space
amidst the cacophony of rain and wind.
The Sky continues to punish the earth,
revenge for the poison in its clouds,
drowning the world below,
a second flood cleansing the world.
When it stops,
there is silence,
deafening in its completeness,
the world half-melted.
Mother and child lay together,
holding one another even in death,
their skin mixing with the puddles,
Reduced to shadows once more.
