I expected the rain to smell differently than it did back home. I listen to it, outside my window, blinds drawn, unsure if it is a neighboring air conditioning unit or some other runaway sound I can't identify right after waking up. It takes me a while to realize it is rain. I moved here, somewhere without it. That is what I gave up. All those mental lists, composed of what I'd be leaving behind, started with rain, right there at the top. And true summers - nights thick with warmth, folding slowly into the buzzing of tiny voices in the corn field. The smell of manure, and the crunch of gravel still waiting to be paved, as the growl of the city creeps up over the hill. Only that rain there can drown it out.
I know it rains in other places. I've seen it. I've felt it on my skin. I've been caught in it outside of Paris, and I've cursed it in London. I've been poured on while driving, and spit on while walking to classes. And it all comes from the same universal puddle. Then it travels. Invisible waves moving in vertical layers as they grow backwards, from the ground, back up to where they came from. With them they bring dirt. They bring blood. They bring used motor oil and peanut shells. They smell of sulfur and processed sugar. Urine and windshield-wiper fluid. And whenever the sky opens up again, I expect to see or smell or taste all of these things again. I never do, but they're there. And these vessels bare an invisible thumbprint of all the places they've been. It's always a guess where they started, but I know where they'll end up.