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Drip, drop, drip, drop
Splatter and hiss.
This is what happens
When we miss.
Drip, drop, drip, drop,
Splatter and hiss.
Miss, miss, miss!

Sing a gaggle of kids as they weave in and out of clasped hands dodging the two trapped in the middle. Sonjia grimaces, glad that their mother is inside where she can’t hear her youngest singing along.

“Mari, come on, we need to go to market before that storm gets here,” says Sonjia pointing to the brown and yellow clouds on the horizon.
“Stop worrying, we’ve got buckets of time,” says Mari dodging and screaming gleefully, “Miss, miss, miss!” as a boy in the middle slaps at her missing.
“Now, Mari,” snaps Sonjia.
Mari peels away from her friends dragging her heels, “You’re as bad as mom, embarrassing much?” she grumbles stomping a few paces ahead shoulders hunched with anger.

Sonjia sighs. It’s not Mari’s fault she isn’t properly afraid. The slime green molted ground and black tree skeletons are the only world she knows. In Mari’s eyes those who get melted from the rain are just plain stupid or slow, the rest of the children revile the scared kids. A Darwinism. Even the adults, the ones caught outside unaware during the first rainfalls though pitied are regulated to work and live largely unseen.

Mari spins and faces Sonjia with her hands on her hips, “Do we even have anything worth trading today?”
“Open the bag smartass,” says Sonjia.
Mari eyes widen as she pulls out a thick white disk the size of a pie plate, “She finished them? They work?”
“Yep, not a hundred percent, but enough.”

Mari’s grin fades as Sonjia’s face turns into an angry mask of fear. Mari still sees nothing in the sky but then notices fog rising from ground cracks far worse than rain.

Sonjia yanks Mari’s hand pulling her down the road, frantically searching for a way up, a staircase, a fire escape, anything.

“The trees! Get to the trees,” screams Mari.

Sonjia makes a sharp right racing the fog burning the ground behind them. Grabbing Mari around the waist she tosses her high on the hope and prayer that she will find a branch. When the fog reaches Sonjia she hears a chorus of voices sing, “ Drip, drop, drip, drop, Splatter and hiss. This is what happens. When we miss.”

Inspired by: This week, use rain as the inspiration for your fiction or creative non-fiction piece. The word limit is 400.