“The Sound My Memories Make When It Rains”

The Sound My Memories Make When It Rains

It always begins with a hush.

The kind of silence that trembles right before the sky opens, as though heaven is taking a deep breath. And then — the first drop. It hits the windowpane like a tuning fork, and all at once, my world fills with sound.

Rain never just falls for me. It plays.

Each droplet a note, each trickle a memory resurrected.

I close my eyes, lean against the glass, and listen.

The rain remembers things I’ve forgotten.

It hums the lullaby my mother used to sing when I was small — the one about the moon chasing the sea. It whispers the click of her sewing machine, the gentle rhythm of fabric under her hands. Somewhere in the chorus, I hear my father’s laughter echoing through the years, tangled in the scent of old cologne and burnt toast.

And then, as it always does, the melody shifts — and I hear her.

Mira.

She was summer and soft thunder all at once.

The kind of person who made you feel like the world had been waiting for you to notice it. When it rained, she’d drag me outside, barefoot, eyes wild, saying, “You don’t hear it, do you? The world is talking. The sky’s writing letters we never send.”

I laughed then. But later, after she was gone, I started to listen — really listen.

That’s when it began.

The rain became an orchestra of the past.

Every drop held a memory. The way her hair smelled like lemon tea and lightning. The sound of our footsteps through puddles. The static in her voice when she said, “Don’t forget me, even if the sky does.”

She left before the monsoon ended. No warning. No note. Just absence — like a skipped heartbeat stretched into forever.

And so, every rainfall since, I’ve listened.

For her laughter in the drizzle. For her whisper in the wind between raindrops.

And the rain — kind, nostalgic thing — always obliged.

Until tonight.

I wake to thunder pressing against the windows. The clouds are swollen with promise.

I open the curtains, waiting for the first sound — that silver hiss, the soft percussion of memory returning.

But when it comes, it’s wrong.

The rain falls — I see it — but I can’t hear it.

Not a single sound.

I step outside, barefoot like she used to. The pavement glistens, raindrops cling to my eyelashes, but the world is mute. My heart pounds against the silence, desperate to make a sound of its own.

“Why?” I whisper, though my voice feels small against the weight of the quiet.

The rain offers no reply.

For the next few days, I wander through the silence.

Each storm that passes is another wound that refuses to sing. I try everything — the old records we danced to, the window we used to press our palms against, even her favorite mug left outside to catch the drops. But the world remains soundless.

And in that unbearable quiet, something begins to surface — a memory I’ve long buried.

The last day.

We were sitting beneath the awning of a café, the world gray with drizzle. She was tracing circles on the table with her fingertip, avoiding my eyes. I remember the smell of cinnamon and wet earth. I remember her saying, “You listen to everything but me.”

I remember how I laughed — not cruelly, just nervously — and told her the rain was too loud.

I remember her tears blending with the downpour.

And I remember walking away, thinking we had endless storms left to share.

I never went back.

The realization cuts through me like lightning.

The rain isn’t silent.

I am.

The sound I’ve always heard — the music of memory — was never in the world outside. It was inside me. And when I shut her out that day, when I forgot the pain of her leaving, I must have sealed that part of myself away.

I kneel in the garden, soaked through, trembling. “I remember you, Mira,” I whisper. “I remember the way you made the rain sing.”

The silence holds, taut as a held breath — and then, softly, it breaks.

A single drop hits the leaves beside me. Ting.

Another follows. Ting, ting.

Then, all at once, the air fills with the familiar symphony — the hush and murmur, the heartbeat of a thousand tiny drums.

I laugh, and the rain laughs back.

But this time, it’s different.

The melody has changed. Beneath the rhythm, I hear something new — her voice, faint but clear, like an echo carried from somewhere kind.

“You remembered,” she says.

And I whisper, “I never really forgot.”

The storm swells, full of light and warmth. I stand there, eyes closed, letting the sound wash through me. The past and present weave together — her laughter, my heartbeat, the steady percussion of forgiveness.

It’s not sorrow anymore. It’s release.

When the rain finally stops, I’m left standing in the quiet aftermath, the air still humming with what once was. I know the silence will come again someday.

But I’m not afraid of it anymore.

Because now, I know how to listen.

And sometimes, when I’m walking home and the first drops begin to fall, I swear I can still hear her —

soft, playful, eternal —

saying, “Shh… listen. The sky’s talking again.”