Rain

Stella paused her eating as she picked up snippets of the conversation going on at the table behind her. Lowered voices were discussing the recent weather changes that no weather person could seem to keep up with. Stella had scanned a few articles about the recent phenomena, but no one had a real answer, only a bunch of scientific jargon about what could be the cause.

“It’s nature,” a voice that sounded wise and tired said. “Nature adjusts to keep the balance. Ever notice that when the population grows, we suddenly have new plagues pop up? It’s nature balancing out. Lessening the herd so the resources can still feed. The growing number of hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis… all natural disasters designed to level the playing field.”

“Come on, Tom,” another voice laughed. “You are sounding paranoid.”

“Then tell me why hundreds of scientists have no clue what the hell is happening,” Tom replied, gaining steam again as he continued. “We have never seen weather patterns like this. We can guess about what happened before humans, but during our time, this shit has never happened. The current population is about 340 million in the US, almost ten million up from five years ago. Ten million increase in five years. We are burying nature, and I think nature is fighting back.”

“So you think God is punishing us with the weather?” another asked.

“I didn’t say anything about a God,” Tom said with increasing frustration. “Nature is nature, it’s own thing. The earth, the stars, the moon that pulls the tides, all nature. Not some invisible dude in the sky.”

“Still think you are paranoid,” another replied. “We need to get back to the office.”

Stella finished her sandwich while their conversation switched to paying for their lunch and scuffling out the door. Their words stayed with her as she finished and went on about her day. She had made note of the odd weather patterns for the past two years and the increasing frequency of violent storms. The new viruses that have appeared in the last few years. It made her wonder if Tom was right. Was nature going to do a Hail Mary? Was nature saying we have become too much and needed to thin the herd, so to speak? Those questions stayed in her head.

The following week, Stella was at her apartment inside an older brownstone building. A window was open, letting the breeze and sunshine into her space. The day was beautiful, with almost perfect weather. Noise from the busy streets floated up to her. It seemed everyone was out on this glorious day. Stella herself thought she might go to the park later and walk around, enjoying the late-summer sun. She stood at her window, thinking of the walk and glancing at all the figures wandering the sidewalks from her second-story view. Her attention was drawn to a dark cloud on the horizon. It was huge and moving at a good clip. The sight of the massive cloud and the dark shadow it cast made the hairs on her neck stand at attention. Her gut tangled in the sensation of knowing this was something different. The conversation from last week crossed her mind, Tom’s words repeating in her head. Nature is balancing.

Stella watched the looming shadow approach, glancing down at the street occasionally and wondering if anyone else was seeing this. She wanted to yell down. To warn them. To tell mothers to get their kids inside, but she wasn’t sure they would respond. Deciding to try, she yelled out to go inside while pointing at the shadow closing in on them. People waved and nodded, a couple yelled back that a little rain wouldn’t hurt them.

As the shadow hit the outskirts of the city, Stella heard the rain pounding on the building and streets, creating a dull roar. Then the distant screams started. Leaning out to see what was causing them, she could only see the shadow moving closer at a disturbing speed. Quickly, she shoved her window closed and flipped the lock, suddenly scared at what was coming. She heard the roar of the rain when it closed in, followed by an onslaught of screams. Peering through the water streaming down the window, she saw people running around the streets. Some were falling in their steps as they tried to escape the rain. Stella could only stare dumbfounded as she saw a person fall and red appear around them. Grabbing her binoculars for a closer look, she realized the person’s skin was burning off with each drop of rain. Dropping the binoculars, she swallowed down the feeling of wanting to vomit. Braving another look, she saw the street littered with bodies as the cloud deluged the area with deadly rain.

Shock taking over her senses, Stella backed away from the window and collapsed onto her couch in stunned silence as the world went awry outside. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before the rain ended, the shadowed cloud moved on, and the sun reappeared. Stella stood and went back to the window. The sun’s rays highlighted the bloody bodies scattered about. Sirens and human cries filled the air as some brave souls tempted fate and wandered outside to see the damage. In her street alone, she could see hundreds of bloody corpses. Stella turned on the TV and found breaking news coverage of a storm that covered half the world. They were estimating human loss in the millions as they showed scenes of the aftermath that looked like it could have been the apocalypse.

Stella thought of Tom and that conversation. She wondered if that was what happened, nature making balance. Experts talked on the news of the weather phenomena, but Tom’s message stayed in her mind. She wasn’t sure what would happen next, only that everything would be different from this point on.