The Disappearing Rainy Season

That year, I was thirty-seven, living alone on the edge of the city. Or rather, what used to be the edge of the city. Skyscrapers stood like abandoned building blocks, jutting crookedly from the cracked earth. The asphalt roads were long since fractured, revealing the yellowish-brown soil beneath, like so many desperate mouths, gaping uselessly.

I hadn't seen rain in a long time.

The meteorological reports said the rainy season had disappeared. Or rather, it had shifted. Where it had shifted to, no one knew. Like a missing person, all that remained was a cold name on a household registration file.

I remember when I was a child, the rainy season was long and lingering. Rainwater dripped from the eaves, forming rivulets on the bluestone slabs, and the air was filled with the earthy, sweet scent of soil and grass. I often sat by the window, watching the rain blur the world on the glass, listening to the sound of the rain tapping against the quiet afternoon.

Back then, my father was still around. He would cover my eyes with his large hands and say, "Guess, has the rain stopped?"

I always guessed wrong.

Now, the rain has stopped, stopped forever. My father is also gone, like the rainwater, evaporated in this parched world.

I started collecting relics of the rainy season. Yellowed photographs, faded umbrellas, rusty tin buckets... Each item carried a memory, like a dry seed, waiting for the moisture of rain.

One day, I found a vinyl record at a flea market. The cover showed a blurry silhouette of a woman, with the background of a drizzling rain. The record was titled "Whispers of the Rainy Season."

I didn't have a record player, but I bought it anyway. I stuck it on the wall, as if it could retain the last breath of the rainy season.

At night, I lay in bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. Those cracks were like a giant spider web, trapping my loneliness and anxiety.

I started dreaming. In my dreams, I returned to the rainy season of my childhood. My father stood in the rain, waving to me. I ran over, but I couldn't grasp his hand. The rain soaked my face, I couldn't tell if it was rain or tears.

I woke up to find my pillow wet.

I began to doubt whether the rainy season ever really existed. Perhaps it was just an illusion in my childhood memory, a dream that could never be recreated.

I walked on the empty streets, the shadows of the tall buildings like huge tombstones. I felt a strange fear, as if the whole world was leaving me.

I found an old record store. The owner was an elderly man with white hair. He wore a pair of reading glasses and sat behind the counter, like a silent statue.

I asked him if he had any records about the rainy season.

The old man looked up, glanced at me, and then shook his head. "Young man, the rainy season was a long time ago."

"But, I remember..."

"Memory can be deceiving," the old man interrupted me, "like this drought, it will devour everything."

I left the record store, feeling a sense of loss.

I began to believe that the rainy season had really disappeared. Along with those memories, that love, that warmth, all disappeared together.

I went home and looked at the vinyl record on the wall. The woman's silhouette was still blurry, and the sound of the rain was still drizzling.

I suddenly realized that even if the rainy season disappeared, even if memories faded, the beauty that once existed, the love that was once felt, would not truly disappear. They would be like seeds, buried in the bottom of our hearts, waiting for a certain moment to sprout again.

Perhaps, all we need to do is wait. Wait for the arrival of the next rainy season, wait for those forgotten memories to be reawakened.

And until then, I will continue to collect those relics of the rainy season, guarding those precious memories, until the end of the world. Like guarding a faint flame, in the endless darkness, waiting for the arrival of dawn.