Afterrain

There's something about the smell of rain - that soft, earthy whisper just before the clouds burst. Poets call it petrichor, an elegant name for a fleeting memory: the earth exhaling in a moment you can never quite hold.

It's always fleeting. Rain comes, rain goes, and the scent lingers only a heartbeat before fading. That's life, isn't it? Fleeting. Here. Gone. Lovely and cruel in the same breath.

This book is my attempt to bottle that scent - moments that mean nothing and everything all at once. Not grand stories where heroes save kingdoms, but the way your heartbeat slows under a tin roof, streetlights turn to halos in the fog, or a memory of someone you loved returns with a passing scent.

The stories are stitched together like raindrops on a window - separate, yet connected by the way they fall. They're about people, places, and memories that drift into view during a storm and vanish when the sun breaks through.

You'll meet strangers, lovers, ghosts, and perhaps even yourself between these lines. You'll walk down wet streets, feel the cold seep into your shoes, and taste tea too hot from impatience. Rain follows you, not in gloom, but like a quiet friend who knows when to pause.

Sometimes there's heartbreak, because rain draws it out. But sometimes, joy: dancing in empty car parks, laughing under a rebellious umbrella, standing soaked and alive.

The phrase Afterrain came to me one morning when I opened my kitchen window. The scent rose from the wet garden and hit me like a memory I couldn't name. Many things in my life have felt like that - sharp, vivid, unforgettable, and then gone. Not just rain. People. Moments. Feelings.

If this book were a perfume, you'd stumble upon it - in the rain, in the street, in a pause between breaths. My job is to help you notice it, and maybe see the beauty in how it slips away.