The town was called Kala.
Nobody remembered when the rain stopped. It was before the grandparents were born.
Before the oldest buildings were built. The dry weather was just the way things were.
Like the colour of the hills, or the sound of the wind at night.
The people of Kala had learned to live without rain.
They had deep wells. They had clay pots that caught the morning dew.
They had a long canal that brought water down from the mountains, very slowly, through stone channels that the old ones had built long ago.
It was enough. Not always comfortable. But enough.
The children of Kala grew up knowing how to save water. They took short baths. They watered the gardens in the evening, not the morning. They never left a tap running.
Water was serious here. Water was careful.
There was a girl in Kala named Dara.
She was twelve years old. She had read about rain in books. She knew the word for it. She knew that it fell from clouds, that it was cold, that it made a sound on rooftops.
But she had never felt it.
Sometimes she climbed to the top of the hill behind the town and looked at the sky. The sky over Kala was almost always blue. Very clean. Very empty.
She didn’t wish for rain exactly. She just wondered about it.
What did it feel like on your skin? Was it gentle? Was it loud?
She had no way of knowing.
One autumn, a woman came to Kala. She arrived on foot, with a large pack on her back and dust on her boots.
Her name was Ingrid. She said she was a traveller. She had come from the north.
People in Kala were polite to strangers. They gave her a room. They fed her.
At dinner, the town’s elder asked Ingrid where she had come from.
“A place with a lot of rain,” said Ingrid.
Everyone at the table became very quiet.
“What is it like?” asked Dara. She had not meant to speak. The words just came out.
Ingrid looked at her. She thought for a moment.
“Cold,” she said. “And grey, sometimes. People complain about it a lot.”
“But what does it feel like?” said Dara. “When it falls on you.”
Ingrid was quiet again. She looked at her hands.
“Like someone is paying attention to you,” she said. “That’s the best I can explain it.”
Dara thought about that for a long time.
She thought about it while she was doing her evening chores. She thought about it lying in bed, looking at the ceiling.
She thought about it the next morning when she climbed the hill.
The sky was blue. As always.
But this time she looked at it differently. She thought about the water in it. The clouds that never formed. The rain that never fell.
She didn’t feel sad exactly. It was something else. A kind of softness. An understanding that some things in life are simply not yours.
Not because of anything you did wrong. Just because of where you were born. What world did you come into?
You live with what you have. You find other things to love.
Ingrid left the next morning.
Dara walked her to the edge of town.
“Will you go somewhere in the rain?” Dara asked.
“Probably,” said Ingrid. “I usually do.”
“I think I would like it,” said Dara. “The rain.”
“You might,” said Ingrid. “Or you might miss the dry air. The blue sky. The quiet.”
She adjusted her pack. She started walking.
Dara watched her go. Down the road, past the stone walls, until she was just a small shape in the distance. Then nothing.
That evening, Dara sat outside her house. The air was warm and still. The stars were out. In Kala, the stars were always very clear. No clouds to hide them.
She looked up for a long time.
Somewhere far away, it was probably raining. Cold drops on cold streets. People are hurrying inside. Puddles forming on uneven ground.
She tried to imagine it. She almost could.
She breathed in the dry, clean air.
It was a good night.
That’s the end of tonight’s story. The sky above you is quiet. The stars are out. Let everything go still. Sleep well.