by Julia Leef
It’s raining. No one knows it yet, but this is the final day of what we will later designate as “the before times.” People duck for cover beneath umbrellas, shelter in their homes, and hurry down sidewalks to avoid being drenched by the soaking, harmless water. We close our window shades, pray for sun, and the day passes, unmarked.
It’s raining blood. In the early days, this is unsettling. People refuse to go to work, parents shield their children from the crimson-soaked world, while religious fanatics and black-humored millennials both cheerfully declare end times. Governments are befuddled, while meteorologists all cry microalgae. The English roll their eyes at the bloody “bloody” weather, while healthcare workers in South Asia set out buckets and basins, wondering if this could be a miraculous solution for the shortages afflicting their communities. Those with unremarkable skies follow the news with the fascination of drivers passing a six-car pileup on the highway. How did that happen? Looks pretty bad, glad it’s not us.
“It won’t last,” people say. “This is just a temporary fit of nature. It can’t rain blood forever.” And indeed, it does not.
It’s raining ping-pong balls. This raises more questions than the blood did, but overall everyone feels it’s an improvement. They ricochet off rooftops and office buildings, plunk into the puddles of blood that haven’t drained away. Tourists at the Grand Canyon post videos of a million plastic orbs bobbing down the crimson-stained Colorado River like oyster crackers in tomato soup. Environmentalists howl about the oceans, and while we all agree it’s sad, we don’t have the capacity to worry about sea turtles right now. Companies start to order employees back to the office.
“The ping-pong balls are weird, no doubt,” they say. “But they seem harmless. And the world has to keep turning.”
It’s raining frogs. They strike the ground like missiles, exploding bloodied ping-pong balls everywhere. Theologians suggest parallels to the Plagues of Egypt. Understood patterns are comforting, and the ability to predict outcomes allows people to prepare for them. If the strange weather began with blood and frogs, it’s only logical to assume that gnats and flies will follow. People rush out to buy mosquito nets and bug spray, reassured in their perceived sense of agency.
But in Brazil, it’s raining armadillos. In Hong Kong, fish splatter against the stone shoulders of the Tian Tan Buddha or splash down safely in Victoria Harbour. Canada has the worst of it in an idiom come to life as cats and dogs descend from its skies. While the Americans crack jokes over Ghostbusters memes, the Canadians close their curtains and try not to look.
It’s raining garbage. Apple cores and latex gloves, packing peanuts and crusty microwave dinner bowls. Punctured tires thunk onto roofs and broken TVs smash through windshields. The sounds of shattering glass puncture the days and nights like offbeat snare drums. Around the world, people throw on headphones and jam in earbuds to block out the noise. Retail workers fight their way through the mess, while sanitation crews try to shove everything into overflowing landfills.
Tensions break out along borders. Even Germany refuses to take in any more garbage, and suggests that the frog remains should be sent to France, who tries to pin the blame on Egypt, who points out that dented soup cans and dirty diapers were not one of the ten plagues, and perhaps the Pope ought to have a word with God about the whole mess. Up in the International Space Station, the astronauts begin stretching their rations.
We shore up our mental wellbeing with silver linings, empty sandbags against the cataclysmic flood.
“At least the packing peanuts soaked up most of the blood.”
“I found a Vitamix blender sticking out of my skylight. A little duct tape and it’s basically usable.”
“This is the new normal. We just have to learn to live with it.”
It’s raining cars. No one’s sure if they were picked up by the wind and flung down hundreds of miles away, or if they formed in the upper atmosphere, manifesting Baby on Board decals and Coexist bumper stickers on the way down. They crash through people’s roofs and insurance premiums skyrocket through the holes left behind. The silver linings rear their useless heads again.
“This doesn’t mean you own a Ferrari now.”
“It crashed down into my driveway, it counts!”
But anger and doubt start to weave their way through the superficial hope and optimism.
“We shouldn’t have to put up with this! Why isn’t our government doing anything about this weather?”
“This is the highest precipitation of automobiles we’ve had on record, and people still won’t believe in climate change.”
“This is why voting does nothing.”
Those with enough money and real estate wait out the storm in underground bunkers or travel to the few remaining unaffected climates. The elite build self-contained communities on their superyachts, populated via exclusive invitations at one-hundred million dollars a cabin. A few bunks are generously offered to those who’ve lost their homes to vehicle downpours—provided they pay their way as members of the staff and crew. The rest of us hunker down in our homes and pray a Chevy won’t crash through our ceiling while we sleep. Our friends and family urge us to move, but where would we go? Over in Sweden, it’s raining bicycles. In Australia, it’s speedboats.
There are whispers that not all the damages are caused by the weather. Photos of missile fragments discovered among the wreckages leak online alongside Reddit threads pointing fingers at the global superpowers. The accused governments dismiss these as unpatriotic conspiracies, and many of us quickly lose track of the issue in the flood of headlines whose subjects change more frequently than the plummeting stock market. It’s probably all true, but what can we do about it?
It’s raining asbestos. At first, everyone thinks it’s snow. Children are bundled outside to frolic through the white drifts, sliding down the hoods of fluff-dusted car carcasses and making angels in the muck. They stick out their tongues to catch the white flakes. Even after the truth is discovered, we decide not to tell them. It’s the happiest we’ve seen them in months.
“We grew up with lead in our paint and chemicals in our drinking water. Kids are too coddled these days anyway.”
“Life is short. Even if this does give us cancer, we might be crushed by a garden shed tomorrow.”
Despite the invisible danger, the asbestos feels like a reprieve. And so we ignore the warnings from doctors and epidemiologists. If we bury our heads in the sand, we don’t have to listen to the deadly roar of the ocean.
It’s raining meteorites. This pleases the apocalyptic crowd, who feel that things have gotten back on track. There is some debate over the terminology.
“Technically, it’s raining meteoroids; they only become meteorites when they hit the ground.”
“I don’t care what they’re called, help me get this fucking rock out of my living room!”
The world has been in a power blackout since the vehicle storm, which at first makes people happy, until they realize they can’t post about the value of disconnecting. We don’t know if Congress is still in session, or if all the legislators have retreated to bunkers and superyachts of their own. Neighbors pass on news in the world’s longest game of Telephone. Canada has closed its borders to the influx of Americans looking to escape the chaos of the States. Bottled water has become more valuable than platinum, thanks to the plethora of contaminants and the dismantlement of the EPA to funnel more funds to our defense budget. War comes up now and then, but our allies and enemies shuffle themselves with each iteration. Apparently, there’s a race to claim the poles and their unpolluted icebergs, although we can’t be sure what truly goes on beyond our borders.
There are those who leave everything behind to become nomads, roaming the world without concern for mortgages, taxes, or HOAs. Their loved ones speak of them like Good Samaritans, helping and healing where needed. It’s a nice thought. We hope it’s true. Others hunker down in their homes, pick up that book they’ve been meaning to read, decide that if they can’t control the what, they might as well control the where. They sit out on their porches and reminisce about less interesting times.
“Remember when it used to rain water?”
“They had floods back then too. Life goes on.”
It hasn’t rained yet today, and we all hold our breath, our platitudes clenched behind our teeth as we crane our necks upward to watch the skies, wondering if the soft shards of hope still caught in our throats are a sign of our shared resilience or delusion.
Julia Leef received her MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University in 2018 and currently resides in the Boston area. She is the Executive Director of Cambridge Common Writers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Lesley MFA alumni. Her work has been published in Belmont Story Review, Wyldblood Press, and is forthcoming elsewhere. She can be found on Instagram at julia_writes92.