Red Rain by Lara Bernhardt

Author:Lara Bernhardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Admission Press

Olivia listened as her students read stories they’d written. The power had not returned until early this morning. She’d slept so fitfully that when her little lamp flickered on in the early morning hours, she’d roused herself and worked frantically to catch up on the tutoring she’d been unable to do the night before.

Exhausted, out of sorts, and underprepared for class, she opted to let the children spend their class times today writing their own stories about anything they wanted to write about. Her youngest classes she’d given construction paper as well, folding the paper into rudimentary covers and stapling it all together. She congratulated each smiling pupil for writing their very first book. A glimmer of the happiness she’d felt in her first weeks—getting to know the children, watching them light up as they learned—shimmered in her dark mood.

For the older classes she put less emphasis on illustrations and simply let them write. The absence of Surithra from the same class as Aditi stole away the brief spark that lit her day earlier. Distracted and shaken, she only half listened as her students read their creations, concerned the girl was the latest victim of menstruation.

Surithra’s empty desk reminded her entirely too much of an empty crib.

A boom resounding so heavily through the building that the windows rattled, shaking her out of her thoughts and back into the classroom.

Shadow blotted out the sun, covering the schoolhouse in an eerie pall, a reddish hue that cast a surreal atmosphere, as though she’d dozed off and now sleepwalked through a nightmarish landscape.

Giggling, the children wiggled from their seats and scurried to the windows, clinging to the sills as they peeked through the glass panes into the looming red glow.

Slow, intermittent drops thudded the parched, packed earth outside before the onslaught opened full force, driving wind swirling from nowhere pummeling the building while angry droplets sluiced against the windows.

Red splotches threw themselves against the glass in a kamikaze effort to gain entry before sliding downward, crimson trails forming in the wake.

Splattered by backsplash from the sills, the children squealed in delight.

“Auntie, it is raining red!”

No. Not again.

Before she knew what was happening, her class morphed into a pack of squirming, leaderless puppies and oozed amoeba-like out the door.

“No!” she called. “Come back!”

Damn! Why hadn’t she bought an umbrella? Probably because without referring back to the newspapers for confirmation of her sanity, she could easily convince herself she’d imagined the previous occurrence. The sky rained down blood on them, for Pete’s sake. This could not be real. And yet, another glance out the windows assured her it was.

She took a deep breath and launched herself into the hallway, only to negotiate a churning sea of bodies undulating toward the door that led into the courtyard. Unable to stop the flow, the current carried her along until she found herself thrust into the torrential downpour.

The children raced about, darting like minnows, suddenly shifting direction with no clear stimulus interrupting the trajectory, turning to charge pell-mell in another direction.

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