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The Great Petrichor by Daniel Ignacio

// Beware, beware of the coming rain.

I was soaking yesterday, now I refuse to go out. The water is different now.

People tell me, “This rain will destroy the world.”
Others tell me, “This rain shall bring blessings overflowing.”

And so, I have yet to inhabit a realm to choose. My roots are tangled in all dimensions; my head is branching into a hundred rivers. Hope clings to my chest like morning sunlight, while extinction treads behind me reaching for my hair.

I have no way of knowing who’s the kindred of liars.

Here I am, the equivalent of a drop in an ocean. While the gods and giants of this world summon the spirits of the End of Days. I find myself dipping my toes into calm disasters, undressed by despair, shattered by the weight of my own arched wings.

The rain hasn’t come, and yet I am 40 days and 40 nights of yearning too early. I have no use for any kind of strange rainfall when I’m already here flooding myself with dark waters.

Blame like petrichor fills up my lungs: “Maybe I caused this rain to form.”


One side shouts, “Progress, progress!” One side murmurs, “We are all doomed.” For this rain is no ordinary rain. I smell the terrifying threat of boiling blood, and springtime blossoms turning into damaging forest fires.

I sleep, and I awaken. Now I haven’t slept, and I haven’t awakened. The rain hasn’t come but it is coming. //