After The Rain

After The Rain

You came along with the rain.

Before the droplets touched my skin, I first recognized the scent. The distinct smell of oxygen, water, moss, and geosmin struck my nose as the cold wind blew, added by the scent from branches of trees and my plastic raincoats. I watched how all colors turned three to five shades darker — the soil was first, then it spread like a drop of paint in clear water. The sound of millions of drops coming into contact with various types of surfaces filled my eardrums, as if it helped the wet foliage cover their joyful sigh from every bit that nourished them.

I know this scent by heart — the smell of the wet land that’s impossible to replicate — no matter how hard I try to combine synthetic and natural oils to achieve something quite like petrichor.

But then, you came along with the rain.

Petrichor was perfect until I learned that it goes well with distinctive tea scent from your coat. I never knew that the smell of raw pu’er tea matches the rain, just like how you blend well with the numerous tea ceremonies that you host religiously. There’s a hint of musk, sandalwood, citrus, and a lot of warmth from your smile. It was brief — your presence didn’t last quite as long as the rain that pours all year in your hometown — but at that briefest moment, you altered my olfactory sense until I forgot what petrichor originally smelled like. Petrichor was mediocre, the scent of peace and tranquility that I once adored turned mediocre after I learned you.

When you’re gone, your scent lingers a little bit longer, as if it bids a bittersweet farewell because your mouth ceased to do so — leaving me wondering how to unlearned you.

I despise the rain now. Not because it merely reminds me of you, but mostly because I realize how mundane the smell is — because I know how someone out there, somewhere across the world, somewhat smells better than the rain.

For XMH — and his forever love for tea and rainy days