The rain collector

 

Experimental Short Story Series #53
Title: The Rain Collector
By Faraz Parvez (Pen name of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal, Former Faculty, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA)

The village of Dhawa hadn’t seen rain in seven years.

The land cracked like dry lips. Children were born never knowing the sound of thunder. Wells were nothing but hollow throats whispering dust. And people—once farmers, dreamers—now walked with heads bowed, as if ashamed of the sky.

But one boy still looked up.

His name was Nafi. He was thirteen, thin as a scarecrow, with eyes too old for his age. Every morning, he climbed the temple’s dead bell tower and stared at the empty heavens. “It’ll come,” he’d say. “Rain always returns.”

The villagers thought him mad. Until the day he found the jar.

It was buried beneath the roots of the banyan tree, where no grass grew and birds avoided. It was a simple thing—clay, cracked, with faint etchings of clouds and rivers. He lifted it, wiped it clean, and something sloshed inside.

Water.

Clear, cold, fresh.

He showed no one.

That night, he placed the jar by his window and dreamed of his mother, who had died when he was five. In the dream, she was singing to him, her sari damp with monsoon spray. When he awoke, the jar was full to the brim.

The next night, he dreamed of his grandfather’s stories—of how the village once danced in puddles and built canals with bare hands. The jar filled again.

Each dream, each memory—it drew moisture. The jar drank from the past.

Soon, Nafi began sharing the water quietly. A sip for an old woman whose son never returned. A splash for the teacher who’d once taught under mango trees before the drought took his words. And with each drop, something changed. A mango bud appeared. A lizard returned. A breeze carried a scent of wet soil.

But there was a price.

The jar began choosing dreams on its own.

He would wake with tears on his cheeks and memories he didn’t own. He saw floods that washed away entire villages. Fires started by lightning. Lovers drowned under bridges. Secrets buried beneath cracked ground. The jar, it seemed, wanted truth—not just sweetness.

One night, he awoke not in his bed, but standing outside in the square. The villagers surrounded him. At his feet, the jar was overflowing. Rain was falling—not from clouds, but from the mouths of those who remembered.

“I buried my guilt here,” said the elder. “I let a girl starve while I hid grain.”

“I ran,” whispered another, “when my brother needed me.”

The jar hadn’t only collected memories. It had become a vessel for truth—difficult, dark, and drenched in pain. And as the truths spilled, so did the rain.

The real rain.

That morning, clouds gathered. Heavy, aching, full. And for the first time in seven years, the sky wept.

Not because it had to.

But because it had been heard.

Why We Tell These Stories
This is the 53rd tale in our Experimental Short Story Series, where surreal meets the spiritual, and the ordinary becomes unforgettable. Thank you for joining us on this journey through tales that dare to explore unseen worlds within and beyond.

Our stories are not just told.
They are collected like rain.
One memory, one drop, at a time.

Read, Reflect, Return.
And if a jar ever appears by your window—
Dare to remember.

farazparvez1.blogspot.com
Curated by Prof. Dr. Arshad Afzal, Former Faculty, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA.
Stay with us as we approach #60—our landmark collection in digital and print.

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