When the Rain Forgets to Fall

The monsoons had always been on time in the small town of Sitapur. Year after year, without fail, dark clouds would gather like old friends at a reunion, thunder would roll like distant drums of a marching band, and the scent of wet earth would rise as if nature were breathing in relief. But that year, the rain forgot to come.

The air hung heavy with heat and silence. Cracks split the once-soft earth, crops wilted into brittle shadows of themselves, and hope dried up faster than the village wells. The elders whispered about omens, while children looked up at the sky, confused at its cruel vacancy.

And in the heart of this drought stood Meera alone, unwept, unheard.

It had been ninety-seven days since her son Aarav died. The boy who once danced in puddles and chased lightning bugs through muddy fields now lay beneath a patch of sunburnt soil in the corner of their farmland. No headstone. No ceremony. Just the dull thud of earth on a child-sized wooden box and the long, keening wail of a mother no longer tethered to reason.

He was only eight. Meera hadn’t stepped into town since the funeral. Her once-vibrant saris now clung to her like worn-out skin, faded and lifeless. Her husband, Rajan, still went to the fields each morning, though there was little to tend. He would return at dusk, hands dirtied, eyes empty, the two of them orbiting grief without speaking.

Their home was filled with shadow his silence, her sobs, Aarav’s laughter that lingered in walls like echoes trapped in time.

But the most painful silence was the sky.

Aarav had loved the rain. Every June, when clouds would roll in and crack open like drums of joy, he’d dash outside barefoot, his laughter soaring higher than the thunder. He believed rain was magic“God’s way of playing,” he’d say, sticking out his tongue to catch the drops.

The last thing he ever asked was, "Maa, will it rain tomorrow?"

Meera remembered the way his skin had burned with fever, how his tiny chest rattled with each breath. The doctor came too late. The medicine came too late. Everything came too late.

But the rain?

The rain never came at all.

One evening, as the sky turned a dusty orange and birds flew low to escape the heat, Meera stood barefoot in the dry field where she used to plant marigolds with Aarav. Her hands trembled as she held his old toy airplane blue plastic, chipped at the wing.

She tilted it skyward.

“I can’t feel him anymore,” she whispered.

The wind was still.

She dropped to her knees, digging her fingers into the hard soil as if she could claw her way to where he slept. Tears streamed silently down her cheeks. The earth didn’t answer. Neither did the sky.

Behind her, Rajan stood motionless, watching the woman he once married disappear deeper into her sorrow.

“We have to let go,” he said, his voice thin with grief.

Meera turned, her eyes wild with heartbreak. “Let go of what? Our son? Or the only reason I knew how to breathe?”

He didn’t answer. He simply turned and walked away.

The next morning, Meera didn’t come back inside.

Instead, she went to the center of the field, sat down cross-legged, and began to wait. She didn’t say why. She didn’t take food or water. She didn’t look at Rajan when he begged her to return.

“I’ll wait here,” she said softly, “until the rain remembers us.”

Word spread. Neighbors came, then villagers. Some tried to reason with her, others brought offerings water, fruit, prayers.

But Meera just stared at the sky, hands on her knees, Aarav’s toy plane beside her in the dirt.

“She’s gone mad,” they whispered.

But one old woman knelt beside her and wept. “She’s not mad,” she said. “She’s just remembering too hard.”

Days passed. Meera’s skin turned bronze from the sun. Her lips cracked. Her voice faded. But she stayed, a statue of grief and longing in a dead field.

Then one night, as the wind turned cool and trees rustled for the first time in weeks, Rajan sat beside her.

He brought no words. Only a tattered sketchbook Aarav’s.

Page by page, they turned through it: scribbled stick figures holding hands, lopsided clouds raining over bright yellow suns, and on the last page, a drawing of the three of them under a giant umbrella, laughing.

At the bottom, in crooked letters, Aarav had written:

*"When it rains, we are together."*

Meera pressed her forehead to the page and let out a sound that was not quite a sob, not quite a scream. Rajan held her for the first time in weeks, and they wept into each other like people trying to find pieces of themselves in shared sorrow.

That night, clouds returned.

The villagers awoke to the scent of moisture in the air, the kind that precedes a storm. Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance. Cows stirred. Leaves fluttered.

And then finally drops fell.

Not heavy at first, just whispers. Then louder, more urgent, like applause from the heavens. The cracked soil darkened. The dust settled. And Meera, still in the field, turned her face upward and closed her eyes.

It was the first time she had smiled since Aarav left.

The rain poured, unstoppable. Children danced. Elders prayed. Rajan ran out to her, laughing through tears. He lifted her into his arms, soaked and shivering, and spun her slowly.

“He remembered,” she whispered. “Our boy remembered.”

“No,” Rajan said, pressing his forehead to hers, “you reminded him.”

A year later, the marigolds returned to the field, blooming brighter than ever.

And in the middle stood a small wooden sign, hand-painted and worn from weather.

It read:

“Aarav’s Rain”

Where the sky remembers love.

The End.