THE SMELL OF RAIN

                                                                           by Alastair Adamson

In that place, it never rained. Never rained except in stories, the stories told by the old men sitting outside the feedstore, ragged sweat-stained hats pulled over their eyes. But the stories they told, to any who paused long enough to listen on that dusty old street, were stories told to them by their great-great-great grandpas, passed down hand-to-mouth like a communicable disease.

They spoke of rain, rain in the desert, water falling from the sky. Now, everyone with the least bit of sense knows that water comes from the ground. But still they told their tales, water falling from the sky.