Pluviophiles

Pluviophiles

Some like the rain. Perhaps too much. It just feels like something you could clutch in your hands, your heart heavy with the water of a hundred lands. A little girl

danced before the stars each night, her skin soaking and her eyes bright, fragile fingers twirling as water poured between the creases of her clothes. Palms outstretched towards

the sky. How she wished to cry and create a shower of her own. If only then she had known that her love of this rain would not be enough to fix the endless beating of the one

encased within. Years later and the rain acts only as a reminder of her Sin, it is beating harsh, petulant. Chilling. It follows her now. She’s a simple experiment. Something

pretty. Something sour. Years have

passed. She is callous and a coward. A man watches from afar, twisted by age. He too loved the rain, but today he is afraid. They are haunted

together by the shadow of the past. Rain acts with spite as it mocks both their plights, their umbrellas sheltering their hair. They do not care, do not realise they have locked themselves

away. Perhaps one day they will confess, and be rid of their mess, and their love of the rain shall return. If only they remembered their previous yearning for the freedom it inspired. The rain is

So tired from chasing its forgotten followers. Maliciously it lingers in the air, except for the innocent, who still enjoy the magnificence of the floods the world’s tears wept and washed.

Some like the rain. Perhaps too much. They become addicted, warped. Hollow to the touch. They run away; spend their days indoors; fall victim to the wars - lose themselves to an identity they never sought.

Mattie Butler

Illustration by Bijou Forget