[ WP ] It started to rain , and it never stopped .

When the world began to end, this is where I was: 
 
 The rain, quiet and pale and soft, sparking off leaves; the concrete under our feet, darkening; a rattle from a nearby apartment and a man, shirtless, frantically grabbing his laundry hanging outside; and her, back to me, head tilting upwards slowly, her dark hair falling, hands rising, and her voice, saying, “ It ’ s raining. ” 
 
 -- -- -- -- 
 
 My first boyfriend once asked me, “ Do you believe in miracles? ” 
 
 I said, “ Yes, of course. ” 
 
 He said, “ What is a miracle to you? ” 
 
 I asked him, “ What isn ’ t? ” 
 
 -- -- -- -- 
 
 When my sister was born, I was crying in the hospital. I don ’ t remember why, but something about the fact that she was coming to life, here, now, near me, startled me and frightened me and awed me. How was it, I wondered, that the roundness of my mother ’ s belly would give way to someone, alive? Living? Breathing? 
 
 When they asked me to hold her, my arms were shaking. She was so small. I was only eleven, but she was still so small. I didn ’ t want to break her. She was pink and red and fragile, little hands and little feet and little heart. She had come from my mother ’ s stomach, alone. 
 
 And, I realized, when her eyes widened to look at me, alive. 
 
 -- -- -- -- 
 
 It was summer and the hottest it had been in many years. Me and my sister would eat blue popsicles on the porch as the cicadas screamed around us, and my mother would come to the entrance, and we could always tell by the way she walked, quiet but not quiet enough, and she would say, “ Goodness, don ’ t you two have anything better to do? ” And my sister would stick out her cyan tongue, and my mother would sigh and stick her tongue out back, and I would laugh. 
 
 I recall my sister, one time, her feet drawn up, hands around her ankles, saying to me, “ I ’ m glad you ’ re home. ” 
 
 “ Me, too, ” I said, and I remember thinking, then, that summer was too brief. I didn ’ t want it to end. 
 
 -- -- -- - 
 
 When we came back home, dripping wet and giggling, our mother was worrying at her nails with her teeth in front of the TV. It was a long-lasting habit from her childhood, one that was passed to both me and my sister. 
 
 “ Look at this, ” she said, her eyes too fast, blinking too quickly. My sister inhaled sharply; I took her hand in mine, and we made our way over. 
 
 The reporter on the screen was stoic, but something was almost frenetic about what she was saying. 
 
 “ Yes, worldwide. Nobody can tell why this is occurring. Scientists from a multitude of fields, from all over the world, are currently communicating; there is an expected meeting for many organizations at… ” 
 
 MIRACLE RAIN, the headline said. 
 
 The shot cut to someone standing in front of a video of rain, pouring down into the desert. 
 
 “ Some people are saying, ” he said, “ that this means the world is about to end. ” 
 
 -- -- -- 
 
 My sister and I traded blue popsicles for a platter of rice crackers. Our backyard had several inches of water in it. We hadn ’ t yet broken the fence around it. Neither of us wanted to. My sister said she liked it, anyways. I didn ’ t. It made me uneasy, even if it was pretty; the sight of something so familiar submerged made me frightened. She liked to wade around in it, though, in her blue rain boots. 
 
 The streets were going under too much construction for us to go out often. We raided our mother ’ s library like we used to, and read together in the living room. It had been a while since I had read a book, excluding any of my mother ’ s. I think I could have lived like that forever: me and my sister, sitting and reading together, the house quiet except for my mother ’ s footsteps or the kettle or the rice cooker, and heartbeat of the constant rain outside. 
 
 -- -- -- 
 
 Then, the white chrysanthemums came. 
 
 They rolled out in swathes, floating over our flooded backyard, several starting on our roof, and sprouting through cracks in concrete. They survived through the rain with ease. Road construction was mostly complete, so my sister and I went to go see the flowers. An old man, our long-time neighbor, told us that the nearby mountain was full of them. He gave us ginseng candies, then, one for each of us, and I ate both because my sister didn ’ t like them. 
 
 We had hiked around the mountain many times before; it had been a while for me, the last time we had done it being last year. Rarely had we seen other people. Now, it was teeming with families. 
 
 I didn ’ t blame them. The mountain had become frighteningly beautiful; the ground was erupting with them; the only sight of soil without them was the path in itself. 
 
 “ I feel like I ’ m dreaming, ” my sister murmured. I laughed, and straightened the umbrella over us. 
 
 “ Come on, ” I said, closing the umbrella and putting it in my bag. “ I ’ ll race you to The Falls. ” 
 
 “ But you ’ re taller, and a boy! ” 
 
 “ I ’ m an old man, now, ” I told her solemnly, to her great amusement. “ Medical school has weakened me, too. Unless you ’ re scared of being beat by your lame brother! ” 
 
 “ No way! ” she exclaimed, and took off to prove it. 
 
 Like that, I chased her up the mountainside, far past where most families stopped; we sprinted through, and though when I shouted at her to slow where the path became slick stone, she did; aside from that, it was just us, running as hard as we could, our laughter high and hysterical. 
 
 Eventually, she slowed down, and I managed to last until I caught up with her. 
 
 “ Tie? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Tie, ” she agreed, and we continued going up together, walking. 
 
 Usually, one could hear The Falls within being a minute away from them; this time, we could hear it from much further away. It was a roar that grew and grew with every step, and when we reached the cliff closest to The Falls, it was a pounding, terrifying surge of sound, smashing downward. The river it fell to used to be like a cut in the distant forest, a shining wound; now it gaped open. 
 
 There ’ s something about being so close to such power, such danger; my sister held to my hand, for both my sake and hers, and like that we, weak and exhausted after a run, stood, chrysanthemums pooling at our feet, the cool rain slicking our hair to our foreheads, watching feed into the waterfall that fed into the river. 
 
 -- -- -- 
 
 Above all, this is my favorite memory of me and my sister: exiting the plane after my first year of college and first year away from home, and seeing my family at the airport, my father holding flowers, my mother crying, and my sister, running into me; and, as I picked her up and spun her in the air, her saying, “ Welcome home! ” 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 My father started coming home earlier. 
 
 “ Who gives a damn, ” he said, when my mother asked him what his coworkers would think. 
 
 In truth, I did not know how to act around him. I never did. He was my entire opposite; far more sociable to strangers than he was to those closest to him. I admired him and loved him, for working so hard for us, for caring for us, and for holding me when I wept over our grandmother ’ s death, but I did not know him. 
 
 But, when he saw me and my sister on the porch, and sat down, and starting telling us about a freak hailstorm from his youth, I thought I could learn. 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 Three: three princes, three heart, three wishes. The magic number. The truest number. The miracle number. 
 
 Rain. White chrysanthemums. 
 
 Then, meteorites. 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 My family ignored the warnings to leave. 
 
 “ No point, ” my mother said, frankly. “ It ’ ll catch up to us, no matter where we go. ” 
 
 My father quit his job the first out of all his coworkers. He smiled at us when we initially exclaimed over it, and just patted both our heads before lighting a cigarette. 
 
 My sister and I explored; we were careful to avoid stricken areas. The devastation the meteorites were bringing were already saturating the news. We didn ’ t need to see it in person. We fed the neighborhood cats, abandoned in panic or maybe forgotten, and went into the open convenience stores. We ate blue popsicles, even though it was raining, and my sister stuck out her blue tongue at me. 
 
 One day, my first boyfriend gave me a call. 
 
 “ I just wanted to talk to you, in case, ” he said. There was a pause. His voice was different than I remembered; I couldn ’ t tell how. “ How are you? ” 
 
 I told him about the backyard and the mountain and my sister, who came up to my shoulders, now. 
 
 “ And you? ” I asked him, and let myself smile as I listened to him tell me. 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 “ Look, ” my sister said. A brilliant series of meteors, white and blazing and beautiful, fled through the sky. Her dark, huge eyes reflected them as they passed. I watched them through the mirror of her gaze. Like that, we spent a few seconds; and then, without warning, the meteors doubled and then tripled in number, crowding the sky. Her eyes swallowed the sight and forced them into her irises, her little worlds. “ Mom, dad, come here! Look! ” 
 
 I turned my head just in time to catch them stepping outside, my mother holding an armful of white chrysanthemums my father had picked for her. They stopped at the sight before them. 
 
 “ Ah, ” my mother said, and my father clasped her a little tighter to him. 
 
 “ It ’ s raining, ” my sister said. I did not know if she was talking about the meteors, falling from the sky, or the raindrops, leaving ripples on our flooded backyard, or both. I did not ask. 
 
 Instead, I leaned back on my hands, and watched the world end.
