When it rains in my city, tiny lifeforms sprout on car hoods, brick mortar, and wet dogs’ fur.
Each raindrop shudders as crystalline structures burst out, the air permeated by the wet hiss of their data transfer. I close my eyes and see these alien creatures catalog the inhabitants of their temporary world: microbes, humans, animals, and ghosts. The ghosts see these new lifeforms as a pervasive metallic sheen, and the squirrels instinctively avoid the tiny filaments. Human bodies react imperceptibly, bellies subtly churning at this biomechanical intrusion, but sometimes the children will wrinkle their noses and say, “It smells weird out here.”
When the final drop falls, these delicate bodies rust away before the last puddle dries, their data evaporating back to the alien atmosphere. An ethereal intelligence pulls it effortlessly out of our world, where it will never exist again.
Music Inspiration: Coil’s “Dark River.” “Dark River” is one of those tunes that pleases me for its unexpected sensitivity. Coil’s something of an experimental industrial band, so their music is usually harsh and screechy. I included this song on a mix for a friend’s new baby. The parents were really into industrial and EBM music, so finding songs by industrial artists that could lull a baby to sleep was … fun?
