Speaker 1: Hollo. I welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here,
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: Of all the towns in the narrow crook of the
Speaker 2: Miller's River Valley, Riverfield is the most unapologetically picturesque. The
Speaker 2: train let me off at a trim platform not far
Speaker 2: from the main street, where every clapboard house boasted bowers
Speaker 2: of pansies, ballooning hydrangers, and the sort of climbing roses
Speaker 2: typically bred for envy. My bag was heavy with borrowed
Speaker 2: books and notebooks, accouterments of a retired meteorologist who'd once
Speaker 2: been happier chasing cumulonimbus than hotel pillows. That May morning,
Speaker 2: I was supposed to be a guest lecturer at Riverfield's
Speaker 2: annual flower festival, lured by the flattery of a library
Speaker 2: talk and the memory of weather watching as childhood wonder
Speaker 2: not work. What struck me first, even before the flowers
Speaker 2: or the friendly hand painted welcome to Riverfield sign, was
Speaker 2: a practical absence. The sky hung low and hazy, not
Speaker 2: quite threatening, but certainly full, with the promise of rain,
Speaker 2: distinct at least to noses tuned for petrichor. The scent
Speaker 2: curled up from the soil, edged with a certain greenness
Speaker 2: you learned to trust after years in the field. Yet
Speaker 2: as I wheeled my suit case down maple lane of umbrellas,
Speaker 2: there was not a trace neary a slicker dangled outside,
Speaker 2: not a single yellow poncho flapped on a shop rail,
Speaker 2: and no child was being scolded for jumping in puddles,
Speaker 2: not that there were puddles, of course. The pavement was
Speaker 2: as mat dry as kiln fired clay. The only splash
Speaker 2: of color provided by petals, not wet leaves. Every window
Speaker 2: box bulged with violet and gold. The lawns shone, meticulously clipped,
Speaker 2: but lacking that muddy smudge at the base you'd expect
Speaker 2: after a week of low pressure systems plaguing the region.
Speaker 2: I found myself peering at fences, white picket everywhere, as
Speaker 2: if expecting to see water stained wood or moss runnels. Instead,
Speaker 2: everything looked postcard bright, yet as lush as river country gets,
Speaker 2: the river itself was no trickle. Water tumbled over its
Speaker 2: weir at a steady, robust pace. Brownish lines high along
Speaker 2: the banks suggested it had pushed its limits recently, but
Speaker 2: there was no hint of chaos or flood damaged soil.
Speaker 2: I set down my suit case in the shadow of
Speaker 2: a massive dogwood jotted in my journal, remarkably green, unusually dry,
Speaker 2: no gutters, no drain pipes, no rain barrels by the houses.
Speaker 2: Must watch for overnight patterns due The scientist in me
Speaker 2: felt itchy, grasping for precedent. Small towns form their own weather,
Speaker 2: sometimes valley micro climates and all that. But a pocket
Speaker 2: of endless sunniness with this kind of botanical success was
Speaker 2: almost mathematically impossible. Maybe I thought I was picking at
Speaker 2: a thread simply because I'd always found joy in the
Speaker 2: odd outliers. Still, I made a private promise to note
Speaker 2: what the local did or didn't do about the chance
Speaker 2: of rain. These things, little lacuni in logic, were often
Speaker 2: how the best discoveries began. The blossom ingreeted me with
Speaker 2: the creak of old wood and the cliche aroama of
Speaker 2: baking scones. Missus Lyle, proprietor and first registrant on the
Speaker 2: guest ledger for the Language of Weather Lecture, greeted me
Speaker 2: at the door with hands still dusted in flower. Oh
Speaker 2: you must be doctor Felix. Welcome back east. We've set
Speaker 2: you up in the peony room, and there's mulberry jam
Speaker 2: if you like it, she said, brightly, guiding me in.
Speaker 2: Her attention, however, flickered constantly to the doorway, the tick
Speaker 2: of a clock, the bustle of festival week. We're so
Speaker 2: lucky with the weather always just right for the petals.
Speaker 2: You'll see the festivals a marvel. Did you manage to
Speaker 2: bring a hat? Not for rain? Of course, suns are
Speaker 2: culprit here, she laughed, a vague gesture at the sky.
Speaker 2: You're in for a treat. I brought my suit case
Speaker 2: through a parlor decorated with garlands of paper daffodils. Sunlight
Speaker 2: slanted across polished floors. Outside the window, children chased each
Speaker 2: other in the shade of a cherry, their skipping ropes flashing.
Speaker 2: Don't let anyone tell you we haven't earned it, missus
Speaker 2: Lyle continued, Lose yourself on Maine. Everyone's out sprucing up
Speaker 2: for the riverside banquet. No ugly days allowed, she added,
Speaker 2: half mocking and half sincere. Not this weekend. Main Street,
Speaker 2: just down from the inn was putting on its very best.
Speaker 2: A florist's shop spilled buckets of peonies, to the curb. Harriet,
Speaker 2: the florist and the heart of local rumor, stood arranging
Speaker 2: a wreath, chatting with whomever happened by. Her laugh was
Speaker 2: sudden and contagious, her arms full of lilac stems. I'd
Speaker 2: yet to see a raincoat or galosh among her supplies,
Speaker 2: just baskets for flower petals and trailing ribbons of green.
Speaker 2: A van logoed h Art w l S Dairy next
Speaker 2: town over, pulled up to deliver crates. The driver, a
Speaker 2: cheerful man in waterproof boots, joked with Harriet about muddy fields,
Speaker 2: waving a battered umbrella as he departed. Harriet only wrinkled
Speaker 2: her nose, politely brushing the subject aside. Children dashed between
Speaker 2: tables carrying banner materials. Ellis unmistakable in his blue overalls,
Speaker 2: balanced a step ladder, whistling off key while tying buntings overhead.
Speaker 2: New record this year, he announced to no one in particular,
Speaker 2: more gardens in bloom than I can count, not a
Speaker 2: single petal flattened by the weather. Not here, he caught
Speaker 2: my eye. You from the big city. You just wait.
Speaker 2: Riverfield's flowers stand tall for a reason, ask Harriet. She's
Speaker 2: the keeper of all things blooming on the west edge
Speaker 2: of the green, the river glimmered. Teenagers lolled beneath willows,
Speaker 2: two little ones building boats from bark. Church bells rang
Speaker 2: bouncing in layers over the rooftops. The church steeple itself
Speaker 2: was practically a sun dial in the morning haze, I
Speaker 2: made my way past the neatest row of shops, bookstore, bakery, hardware, library.
Speaker 2: The library was my eventual destination, neat colonials, white with
Speaker 2: pale blue trim outside. Ben sat beneath a makeshift archway.
Speaker 2: He was younger than i'd pictured, a wild mop of
Speaker 2: brown hair, and a gaze that darted cheerfully over the world.
Speaker 2: He recognized me before I introduced myself. Doctor Felix, the
Speaker 2: weather sleuth has landed. He beamed, carrying a box of
Speaker 2: garden history artifacts, just in time to see riverfield in
Speaker 2: full glory. He pressed a pamphlet into my hand. Gardens
Speaker 2: through the Ages twentieth Annual display. I grinned, do you
Speaker 2: always plan your festivals for perfect weather? There's never a
Speaker 2: bad one. Ben replied, as if confusion at the notion
Speaker 2: was embedded in local DNA sunshine and dew. What more
Speaker 2: could we ask? His smile deepened. If you have time,
Speaker 2: I'll show you the antique watering cans inside used ceremonial.
Speaker 2: I suppose people prefer the Knight's gift around us. Public
Speaker 2: conversation rotated. Lucky to live here, said a passerby. Perfect
Speaker 2: for the camellias, as always, said another. In the shade,
Speaker 2: old timers sipped iced tea, observing the procession of color
Speaker 2: at the river. Women in sun hats laid out table
Speaker 2: cloths and platters for tomorrow's banquet. A pair of young
Speaker 2: parents tied ribbons to a little bridge, laughing as a
Speaker 2: gust flipped the end into the water, salvaged by a
Speaker 2: grinning child reaching from a low stone step. The river
Speaker 2: was high, but not dangerously so. The banks bore the
Speaker 2: scarring of waters, regular encroachment, and wild flowers grew right
Speaker 2: up to the edge. One neighbor from Hartwell carried grocery bags,
Speaker 2: chatting with a local about awful rain delays on the
Speaker 2: main road. But the riverfield woman only smiled, saying you're
Speaker 2: in the sun, now enjoy it. No hint of sarcasm
Speaker 2: passed between them. Peering around, I saw no public rain shelters,
Speaker 2: no umbrella stands. A white wooden welcome sign at the
Speaker 2: entrance to Maine proffered perpetual sunshine, friendly faces, finest gardens.
Speaker 2: The phrase struck me as poetic license, not fact, but
Speaker 2: a memory niggled. I'd studied precipitation records for the region,
Speaker 2: and certainly this was a variable part of the state.
Speaker 2: At my room that night, I unpacked clothes, careful to
Speaker 2: check the weather on my phone. Seventy two degrees f,
Speaker 2: partly cloudy, fifteen percent chance of evening showers. But there
Speaker 2: was no sign the town was preparing for wetness of
Speaker 2: any kind, not in conversation, not in ritual. Perhaps that
Speaker 2: was normal here. Small towns run on idiosyncratic logic. But
Speaker 2: I scribbled another note before bed. Floral abundance plus no
Speaker 2: rain gear equals contradiction. Look for gutter runoff barrels. Ask
Speaker 2: tomorrow day broke on payanes wreathed in sun. The cafe
Speaker 2: across the street beckoned with a sign fresh scones, local berries.
Speaker 2: A chalk sketch of a sun wearing sunglasses presided over
Speaker 2: the menu. Ben greeted me as I finished coffee, eager
Speaker 2: to show me the festival displays filling the library's main hall.
Speaker 2: I was half way to the library, distracted by polished
Speaker 2: windows and baskets of irises, when my shoes scuffed against
Speaker 2: brickwork in front of the bakery. The brick was dark,
Speaker 2: almost slick, running half a shade deeper than the sun
Speaker 2: warmed sidewalk. No one was watering the hanging baskets, and
Speaker 2: there was no down spout near by, just freshly arranged
Speaker 2: crocuses and a line of clean flagstones. I knelt, tracing
Speaker 2: the cool damp with a finger. It was not a
Speaker 2: trick of shadow, nor so far as I could tell,
Speaker 2: the result of a misplaced beverage. The air was still,
Speaker 2: but the scents petal earth damp were richer here inside,
Speaker 2: Harriet was counting coins at the register. Blueberry scone warmed
Speaker 2: for you. I nodded, then played my card quick question.
Speaker 2: If I want to buy an umbrella just in case,
Speaker 2: or a poncho, Where would I find one? Harriet paused
Speaker 2: hand half way between till and jar. She gave a smile,
Speaker 2: but it was tentative umbrella. She repeated, Oh, you must
Speaker 2: be thinking of somewhere else. Her tone suggested I'd misremembered,
Speaker 2: my own needs. None of that around here, she said,
Speaker 2: with cheerful certainty. Not worth the bother, nothing ever comes
Speaker 2: of it. I forced a grin. You never know New
Speaker 2: England showers love a surprise, she shrugged with a laugh.
Speaker 2: We don't get those, not really. Spring nights are kind. Now.
Speaker 2: If you need a sun hat, I have just the basket.
Speaker 2: I thanked her, but curiosity was gnawing. I drifted outside
Speaker 2: to examine Riverfield's official sign its painted sunbeam perpetual suncheon
Speaker 2: felt less boast and more decree. I ambled a long
Speaker 2: Maine again, scrutinizing infrastructure. No storm drains. At any corner
Speaker 2: near the library were two half buried antique iron grates,
Speaker 2: both choked with petals, neither leading to any visible system.
Speaker 2: For a town so defined by its gardens, and for
Speaker 2: a river familiar with overflow, such neglect was odd. That evening,
Speaker 2: over dinner, I prodded my memory for references in years
Speaker 2: of meteorological notes or anecdotal reports to inclement weather in Riverfield.
Speaker 2: Nothing surfaced but silence and sun. The most detailed mention
Speaker 2: I found in state records was pleasant mild community festival
Speaker 2: as scheduled. I solved the menu trout with green beans
Speaker 2: and made another note before bed rain never acknowledged impossible
Speaker 2: observe Overnight, I drifted through a faint discomfort, smoothed by
Speaker 2: the lull of crickets. Late, I roused myself for a walk.
Speaker 2: The gardens by lamplight, shimmered, Each leaf host and astersay
Speaker 2: rose held a heavy, perfect bead of water, arrayed not
Speaker 2: like dew, but as if laid there by the hand
Speaker 2: of a steady shower. The lawns glittered, and a thin
Speaker 2: mist hovered just above the tulips. I flicked a drop
Speaker 2: between fingers. It pooled and slid. I circled the block,
Speaker 2: detouring past the cafe. The owner, Oliver meditative sporting suspenders
Speaker 2: over a white shirt, was closing up. I asked, lightly
Speaker 2: bit of a wet patch, pointing at the low curb.
Speaker 2: Is that from the pipes? He considered it only a moment,
Speaker 2: then waved a dismissive hand. Trick of light. Dew gathers
Speaker 2: in funny places. Nothing but the night's blessing, he said,
Speaker 2: locking the door. I continued, passing the hardware store window
Speaker 2: display trowels, gloves, herb seed, packets and a cheerful placard
Speaker 2: Shine on Riverfield. No rain coats, no waders, not even
Speaker 2: a tarp on special. I returned to the inn, thinking
Speaker 2: myself tired, perhaps misreading the signs. My phone pinged a
Speaker 2: message from an old colleague, Jane, now at the regional
Speaker 2: weather station in Hartwell. Suppose to be a wet week,
Speaker 2: prepping for rain on Thursday. What's it like your way?
Speaker 2: My reply took longer than it should have. Sunny as ever,
Speaker 2: local roses think they're in provas. The next afternoon, I
Speaker 2: slipped into the public Library's upper reading room, a sunny nook,
Speaker 2: its walls hung with children's paintings of daffodils. Old yearbooks
Speaker 2: lined one shelf. Leather bound weather logs were kept in
Speaker 2: narrow boxes. Leafing through, I found that whether notations were
Speaker 2: at best impressionistic, clear, pleasant, brisk air, sun light, breeze,
Speaker 2: no precipitation amounts, no notations for storms or even minor showers.
Speaker 2: Archive years had gaps missing, perhaps or never filled. Ben
Speaker 2: bustling by with another box paused, you're after newspaper weather columns.
Speaker 2: There's some from the old gazette, though not updates in years.
Speaker 2: I leafed further and found nothing but bouquets, fair parade winners,
Speaker 2: festival dates, references to clear mornings and night air. No
Speaker 2: one on record had called out a rainy day, even
Speaker 2: for a joke. I pressed the question, it's odd. Do
Speaker 2: you ever recall a festival being delayed for rain? Ben
Speaker 2: looked thoughtful now, I think the year the mayor caught
Speaker 2: the flu. We worried, but sun came through anyway. The
Speaker 2: gardens never seemed to go thirsty. We have due each
Speaker 2: morning a gift. The roses are evidence enough, don't you
Speaker 2: think The market next morning pulsed with the scent of
Speaker 2: mint and marigled. Stalls from Hartwell and father Afield sold
Speaker 2: fruit honey jams. One vendor from Well outside Riverfield joked
Speaker 2: with a friend about arriving sopping after an unexpected downpour.
Speaker 2: The town's faces smiled, but no joke returned. It slid past,
Speaker 2: as if the punch line didn't translate. I listened for
Speaker 2: any note of rain in the chatter, found none. Curious,
Speaker 2: I tracked down Missus Duprey, rumored to have grown Riverfield's
Speaker 2: prize lilies for thirty years. She sat on a bench
Speaker 2: with her tabby her son hat wobbling with every nod.
Speaker 2: Your garden is magnificent, I said, does it take much watering?
Speaker 2: How do you manage without a heavy rain this time
Speaker 2: of year? She giggled, the sound low and secretive, shaking
Speaker 2: her head. Magic, I suppose, laugh if you must. The
Speaker 2: gardens listen, and the night air does the rest always enough.
Speaker 2: We've been lucky so long. No one bothers to fuss.
Speaker 2: Her eyes twinkled, daring perhaps or softening the hint of denial.
Speaker 2: Children near by began skipping over the bricks by the bakery,
Speaker 2: the same patch I'd noticed before. The shoes splashed in
Speaker 2: a small pool. Giggles unraveling in the air. Bet the
Speaker 2: wind did it last night? One called, Another bent low,
Speaker 2: sniffing the air above the stones smells nice. I strolled
Speaker 2: after checking the river's state. The water was neither dry,
Speaker 2: creek nor dangerous. Torrent banks were oddly sculpted, flattened grass
Speaker 2: running right down to the edge. A muddy line marked
Speaker 2: a rise in water, recent maybe, but no fresh tire tracks,
Speaker 2: no evidence of sand bagging. I traced up stream past
Speaker 2: a copse of maple on the fringe of town. No dam,
Speaker 2: no sign of engineering to regulate river flow. Yet the
Speaker 2: grass and undergrowth bore marks, pressed, slick, striated, as though
Speaker 2: by a passing current that no one seemed to have witnessed,
Speaker 2: let alone mentioned, quiet but undeniably real. Late into the evening,
Speaker 2: the gardens hunkered under mist. Early morning fog crept down
Speaker 2: the alleys so thick I felt its touch, cool on
Speaker 2: my face. By sunrise, beads clung to every stem, dew,
Speaker 2: they called it, but it was too much, too uniform
Speaker 2: for dew alone. The threads refused to touch together. This
Speaker 2: was more than a town ignoring the occasional storm. It
Speaker 2: was a seamless performance, a shared refusal to see or remember,
Speaker 2: so complete it engulfed every casual conversation, every ledger and record.
Speaker 2: I spent an hour that afternoon copy editing my own motives.
Speaker 2: Perhaps I was chasing shadows. Years in climate science make
Speaker 2: one prone to attributing mystery to wilful ignorance rather than
Speaker 2: tradition or vice versa. But the evidence was too physical
Speaker 2: to chalk up to mere semantics. Papers spread before me,
Speaker 2: I outlined what I'd witnessed, not denial, not exactly superstition,
Speaker 2: a persistent communal reality, a forgetting more powerful than a lie.
Speaker 2: I thought of cultures who rewrite memories after disaster, towns
Speaker 2: that scrub trauma from history to booze that shape generations.
Speaker 2: But always some folk memory persists. I sought out Ben
Speaker 2: in the library's archive room. He wascking up a display
Speaker 2: Riverfield's rarest Roses nineteen thirty five present. The light pooled
Speaker 2: soft on stacks of antique watering cans, never used, he'd said,
Speaker 2: tagged and labeled as ceremonial. I set my notes aside
Speaker 2: and decided not to couch my curiosity. Ben, do you
Speaker 2: remember the last time it rained here? He looked at me,
Speaker 2: eyebrows climbing rain here? Yes, I said, carefully, A real
Speaker 2: falling rain, the kind that soaks coats, needs umbrellas, makes
Speaker 2: you duck and run. Ben hesitated, measuring my tone. I well.
Speaker 2: His smile flickered. A new uncertainty clouded his usually direct stare.
Speaker 2: Not that I can recall. I suppose, well, it must
Speaker 2: have happened the gardens thrive. But no, not since I
Speaker 2: was a boy, and even then, no, just moist mornings
Speaker 2: and clear afternoons. He seemed surprised by himself, searching his
Speaker 2: memory and finding not blanks, but an odd velvet's surface, smooth, impenetrable.
Speaker 2: The day crept onward, I attended the festival openings, chatted
Speaker 2: with teachers, heard from students about home work, botany, and poetry,
Speaker 2: rarely climate. Harriet gave me a posy for my lapel,
Speaker 2: whispering blessed with sun and gentle dew. As always, in
Speaker 2: a quiet moment beside the river, I found myself thinking
Speaker 2: not just about weather, but about unspoken agreements. In some communities,
Speaker 2: after disaster strikes, there's a spoken or unspoken decision about
Speaker 2: what can or cannot be named. Silence covers wounds like moss.
Speaker 2: Was riverfield built on such ground? Something lost, something never spoken.
Speaker 2: I checked again for patterns, the gardens, the dew rituals,
Speaker 2: the festival's tight schedule. If these were part of the forgetting,
Speaker 2: then perhaps the answer was not to look for rain's evidence,
Speaker 2: but for its deliberate omission. I resolved to test it,
Speaker 2: not just observe, but bare witness. That night, I set
Speaker 2: my alarm for the hour just before dawn, the traditional
Speaker 2: time for dewfall, and in my mind, the likeliest window
Speaker 2: for something stranger. I crept into the hall, pulled on
Speaker 2: boots and stepped outside the inn onto the narrow back lane.
Speaker 2: The air bristled with moisture. Somewhere a gutter dripped, though
Speaker 2: I knew none lined this building. I turned the corner
Speaker 2: and heard it, a quiet but unmistakable gurgle. I watched
Speaker 2: as fat drops pooled and ran from every edge. Barrels
Speaker 2: placed by the church steps brimmed flower petals slicked themselves
Speaker 2: to the walkway stones, colors made more vibrant by their
Speaker 2: watery skin. And not fifty feet down, Missus Lyles stepped
Speaker 2: through a shallow puddle by the entry, barely noticing the
Speaker 2: spray that arked from her heel. Another resident met her there,
Speaker 2: an old man with an armful of table cloths. For
Speaker 2: a moment, they both eyed the puddle, then exchanged greetings.
Speaker 2: Neither commented there was an art to it, this refusal
Speaker 2: to see. Farther off, at the old white Church, I
Speaker 2: found the marquis letters freshly changed to read flower festival
Speaker 2: rain or shine. It made me pause on my route back.
Speaker 2: Fifteen minutes later, I glanced again. All it said now
Speaker 2: was flower festival shine. I picked up a dropped festival
Speaker 2: program from the grass, now sodden at the corners. No
Speaker 2: one else gathered them, and by midday the street was immaculate.
Speaker 2: I slipped into the library while the festival crowd drifted
Speaker 2: in for games and song. I asked Ben if he'd
Speaker 2: seen the event programs left outside. Must have gotten caught
Speaker 2: in the morning air. He said, with a breezy shrug.
Speaker 2: You can't trust the wind to be kind to paper.
Speaker 2: I pressed further. Has any festival ever been rained out?
Speaker 2: He grinned, as if at a running joke. We plan
Speaker 2: for shine. That's the river Field, where more questions clustered
Speaker 2: at the edge of my mind. I turned to the
Speaker 2: local paper archives. Headline after headline celebrated full flower beds,
Speaker 2: records broken for blooms struck by morning freshness. Never the
Speaker 2: words rain, delay, inclement, or storm. By late afternoon, my
Speaker 2: own journal was the only record in town. It seemed
Speaker 2: daring to say the word rain falls, but never in memory.
Speaker 2: Is it denial when life thrives? Or is it something deeper,
Speaker 2: a wilful forgetting cast by fellowship and routine? Does it
Speaker 2: even matter, so long as everything grows? I looked again
Speaker 2: at Riverfield, not as a simple outlier, a data error,
Speaker 2: or a place with odd weather. Its anomaly was woven
Speaker 2: tightly into habit, memory, and a collective agreement that I,
Speaker 2: as a visitor, could only see by standing in the
Speaker 2: doorway between record and reality. Not just a semantic dance,
Speaker 2: but a way of safeguarding beauty forgetting, perhaps as gentle
Speaker 2: as the dew that always comes, so that each morning
Speaker 2: the world can be lovely new and untouched by storm.
Speaker 2: The following morning, uncertainty kept me from sleeping past first light.
Speaker 2: My mind had entered a sort of scientist's fever, a
Speaker 2: need not just to observe again, but to measure. At dawn,
Speaker 2: I padded down the creaking stairs of the inn, careful
Speaker 2: not to wake missus Lyle, whose customary scone trays would
Speaker 2: already be cooling beneath Gingham covers. I took from my
Speaker 2: case a handful of small tools, a rain gage borrowed
Speaker 2: for show and tell at the festival, and the aluminium
Speaker 2: basin I'd used for mixing test solutions in the past.
Speaker 2: I left both in the court yard, the gauge tucked
Speaker 2: discreetly among the peony beds the basin where sun would
Speaker 2: find it first. Mists swirled over the roof tops, dense
Speaker 2: and radiant with possibility, while the flower beds sparkled. My
Speaker 2: hands lingered over leaf and bud, half hope to catch
Speaker 2: nature in the act a theater. Before the curtain dropped,
Speaker 2: everything was damp, every edge beaded with water. I bent
Speaker 2: to touch the pavers. They were slick, darkened, silent on
Speaker 2: the question of whether it had been rain or only
Speaker 2: another trick of the riverfield night, a door creaked open.
Speaker 2: Missus Lyle sleep, tousled and cheerful in her dressing gown,
Speaker 2: stepped out with a tray. She stopped short, gaze caught
Speaker 2: by the basin, now a shallow mirror, and the rain gage,
Speaker 2: its cylinder brimming. She tutted, voice bright but distracted heavy
Speaker 2: dew last night, it washes everything clean. Funny how it
Speaker 2: collects like that? Best not let the boarders track it inside.
Speaker 2: She wiped the inside of the basin with a quick,
Speaker 2: practiced sweep of her towel. Her eyes didn't linger. I
Speaker 2: watched the familiar gesture, the way acceptance slipped over observation,
Speaker 2: rendering the evidence moot almost before it was seen. At breakfast,
Speaker 2: I tried to press the issue gently, mentioning the g
Speaker 2: you had been enough to overfill the inn's largest water ink,
Speaker 2: and by morning missus Lyle smiled, our night air is generous.
Speaker 2: That's true. I do think we're special in little ways,
Speaker 2: don't you. It wasn't denial. It was as if the
Speaker 2: boundary between whether and custom was maintained not by ignorance
Speaker 2: or avoidance, but by shared instinct. Each time the topic
Speaker 2: threatened to strike two directly, the townsfolk redirected or reinterpreted,
Speaker 2: threading every answer with fondness. The subjects slipped away, not hidden,
Speaker 2: but absorbed. Later that morning, as the festival spilled down,
Speaker 2: Maine and garden tour convened. Beneath bunting and blossoms, I
Speaker 2: encountered a pair of hikers at the cafe. Their boots
Speaker 2: were muddy jackets slung over chairs, their orders coffee, black eggs.
Speaker 2: If you have em had the breathless tenor of people
Speaker 2: used to open sky. I nudged my way into their conversation.
Speaker 2: You come from heartwell, I asked, the older of the two. Nodded,
Speaker 2: scanning me through wirerimmed glasses. Beautiful walk over, but we
Speaker 2: had to wait out a thunderburst by the post road.
Speaker 2: You should have seen it, hail, for a minute, then
Speaker 2: just sheets coming down. He tipped his mug in a
Speaker 2: kind of salute. Makes you appreciate shelter, doesn't it? I
Speaker 2: glanced at the locals in earshot. Ellis fixed a string
Speaker 2: of banners above the porch. Harriet polished her shop's window display.
Speaker 2: Children chalked petals on to the pavement. Every Riverfield face
Speaker 2: registered the traveler's remark as incidental, some smiling, most simply
Speaker 2: letting the words drift away unclaimed. Ben too wandered past
Speaker 2: lovely morning for a leg stretcher, isn't it? Did you
Speaker 2: enjoy Riverfield's sunrise? The hikers swapped glances. Quietest dawn I
Speaker 2: can remember, streets looked washed clean, but there wasn't a
Speaker 2: cloud in the sky when we woke. For an instant,
Speaker 2: I watch what I'd come to think of as the
Speaker 2: Riverfield exchange take place, a gentle deflection, a social tilt.
Speaker 2: The visiting hikers experience reel as rain was received politely
Speaker 2: but not shared in the local context. Their mention of
Speaker 2: storm left no mark. The conversation looped instead to coffee pricing,
Speaker 2: festival directions, and eventually to Harriet's recommendation for plumb tarts.
Speaker 2: After breakfast, I returned to the courtyard. The basin and
Speaker 2: rain gage were once more dry, emptied of their teltal proof.
Speaker 2: I lingered at the threshold, puzzled by the ease with
Speaker 2: which evidence was subsumed by routine. The old itch sharpened
Speaker 2: a need to record, to document, to test the hypothesis
Speaker 2: that had become impossible to ignore. That afternoon, beneath the
Speaker 2: guise of photographing festival preparations, I set up a weather
Speaker 2: proofing camera near the gardens, angled discreetly at the eaves
Speaker 2: and the edge of the church portico. I checked and
Speaker 2: rechecked my settings, keenly aware of how easily river Field
Speaker 2: could make the obvious invisible. Festival day drew crowds, The
Speaker 2: church bells sang out, slicing the bright air. By sunset,
Speaker 2: the din of laughter and song riffled up from every
Speaker 2: green space, And yet already I was watching the sky,
Speaker 2: watching for the turn. By midnight, the camera's memory card
Speaker 2: was full. I woke before five. Drawn by a mixture
Speaker 2: of nerves and the hush, particular to the darkest edge
Speaker 2: of dawn, I padded out to retrieve the camera, heart
Speaker 2: tripping with the potential of contradiction. Opening the laptop in
Speaker 2: my room, I scrolled through the night's footage. There it
Speaker 2: was a soft, spark wet blur beginning just after two.
Speaker 2: It built moment by moment into full, gust driven rain.
Speaker 2: The downpor so familiar I could feel it through the
Speaker 2: glass screen. Droplets scattered from the roof lines, flower beds
Speaker 2: soaked until petals nearly pooled their color. For a stretch,
Speaker 2: the main street shimmered, water racing in transparent thread. Stray
Speaker 2: cats sheltered beneath porch swings, street lights caught the rain's angle,
Speaker 2: until near dawn the storm faded to a pearling mist
Speaker 2: and silk ribbons of fog. No one woke, no alarm
Speaker 2: was raised, and as the morning light flattened itself onto
Speaker 2: the flagstones, puddles evaporated, and the rituals of the day
Speaker 2: claimed every surface anew. At first, the evidence felt like validation,
Speaker 2: the thrill of seeing the world as it is, not
Speaker 2: as people pretend. But the feeling faded quickly. I was not,
Speaker 2: i realized, the first to see this, nor the only
Speaker 2: one capable of recording it. The question shifted again, if
Speaker 2: the proof existed yet remained unremembered. What was memory's real
Speaker 2: role in the life of this town? If the animals,
Speaker 2: the river, the gardens responded to weather but the people
Speaker 2: did not, was the act of forgetting purposeful? I took
Speaker 2: my camera to breakfast, considering the impulse to show someone
Speaker 2: missus lyle Ben and found, and I'd become protective of
Speaker 2: the boundary I'd crossed. Instead, I pocketed the card, The
Speaker 2: knowledge settling deeper, anchoring a new angle of curiosity. What
Speaker 2: is remembered by choice? And what is set aside for peace?
Speaker 2: A new thread emerged from this uncertainty, not how or
Speaker 2: even why, but since when? When in Riverfield's span of
Speaker 2: history had this gentle omission begun? By mid morning, my
Speaker 2: attempts to discuss whether, in unofficial settings a joke at
Speaker 2: the pub, a casual aside during a picnic met the
Speaker 2: same practiced delusions. Oh the nights are generous, Harriet say,
Speaker 2: winking over her bouquet. You have to trust the old
Speaker 2: jew works better than city plumbing. Ellis, after overhearing an
Speaker 2: exchange between another out of towner and a clerk in
Speaker 2: the hardware store, caught my eye. Later he found me
Speaker 2: near the river's edge some folk get caught up wondering,
Speaker 2: he said, and twisting a coil of garden hose that
Speaker 2: looked new for want of use. Ask themselves what makes
Speaker 2: a town lucky? Me, I say, everyone's got something best
Speaker 2: left alone. We get by. You know, Gardens thrive, river runs,
Speaker 2: kids grow up with their shoes clean. I try not
Speaker 2: to look for ghosts under every stone. There was no
Speaker 2: challenge in his tone, just a hint of weary wisdom
Speaker 2: and a latent warning. Some traditions serve comfort more than curiosity.
Speaker 2: That afternoon I tried a new route, one less dependent
Speaker 2: on present habit more on the memory of institutions. The
Speaker 2: church's basement archives were open to the public as part
Speaker 2: of the festival, Stacked high with boxes labeled in looping script,
Speaker 2: records of birthday parties, flower arrangements, bake sales. At the back,
Speaker 2: behind the crate marked Founder's Day sixty two, I found
Speaker 2: a brittle folder, the sort that survives by clinging to
Speaker 2: the inside of a cardboard sleeve. Hand written, faded and
Speaker 2: nearly falling apart. The page read Year of the Lost
Speaker 2: Harvest nineteen twenty eight. Waters forgot their banks, Hard days
Speaker 2: remembered in the gardens that failed. Let us ask no more,
Speaker 2: let us prize the dawn. That was all a hint,
Speaker 2: a kernel. The entry neither detailed the disaster nor assigned blame,
Speaker 2: but from its placement and careful ambiguity, it was clear
Speaker 2: this event had left a scar deep enough to echo
Speaker 2: through custom. I turned the page, inventory resumed, summer sunny
Speaker 2: and fair Rose competition a great success, Children's Day Dances
Speaker 2: on the Green. The absence of rain in every record
Speaker 2: thereafter was suddenly loud. The forgetting was not a chronic habit,
Speaker 2: but a response, specific, intentional, a wound quarterizing act. I
Speaker 2: pocketed the phrasing, asked no more, and exited the stony
Speaker 2: hush to the festival's late afternoon mood, watching families gather
Speaker 2: for speeches and songs. The memory of loss had not vanished.
Speaker 2: It had been quieted, transfer formed into a ritual of
Speaker 2: brightness and selective seeing. The emptiness where rain should have
Speaker 2: lived was filled with sun, with dew, with laughter. The
Speaker 2: riddle pressed in tighter. Human logic after disaster loves erasure,
Speaker 2: but equally often invites replacement. How complete could collective self
Speaker 2: protection become when built not with silence alone, but active substitution.
Speaker 2: I drifted toward the library, where Ben sleeves rolled above
Speaker 2: his elbows were stacking festival newsletters. He saw the question
Speaker 2: in my face, and, after a moment's pause, tilted his head.
Speaker 2: You look like your carrying more than garden facts, Felix.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask him outright, but something in the
Speaker 2: way he watched the children outside stringing garlands for the
Speaker 2: closing ceremony made me hesitate. Instead, I ask, just is
Speaker 2: there some one here who remembers longer than most? He
Speaker 2: considered Ada Lane. She's in the house with the green
Speaker 2: door up Willow Path, oldest among us, was the town
Speaker 2: gardener for decades before arthritis got her tools. Instead, knows
Speaker 2: every story, claims to remember not just the gardens, but
Speaker 2: the hearts behind them. Would she mind a call?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: If you come respectfully? Tell her Ben sent you. I
Speaker 2: left the raucous square behind, making my way up Willow Path.
Speaker 2: As gold evening light gathered under the maples. The air
Speaker 2: was so calm you could almost hear the gardens unfurling
Speaker 2: for night. Ada Lane's house was tucked beneath a sweep
Speaker 2: of clematis and honeysuckle. Each window deep set and lined
Speaker 2: with books, gleamed with the soft light of lamps. As
Speaker 2: I knocked, I fancied I could smell the honeysuckle blending
Speaker 2: with petrichor. Ada answered herself, stooped but bright eyed, beneath
Speaker 2: the bristle of gray hair. Her hands, mottled but strong,
Speaker 2: gripped the door frame, not with suspicion, but with the
Speaker 2: contained hue umor of a person who has outlasted many questions.
Speaker 2: Ben sent you, she asked, leading me in before I
Speaker 2: truly replied, I followed her through a living room crowded
Speaker 2: with flower specimens under glass and pressed ferns in frames.
Speaker 2: She gestured me to the best chair, poured strong tea, and,
Speaker 2: after a pause, settled across from me. I told her
Speaker 2: what I had seen, not just in foliage and puddle,
Speaker 2: but the vanished mentions, the erased records, the seamless communal omissions.
Speaker 2: I spoke quietly, and perhaps I rambled. She let me
Speaker 2: work my way toward the only question that mattered. Why
Speaker 2: does no one remember the rain? Ada's eyes fixed somewhere
Speaker 2: past my shoulder, full of distance. She listened, hands wrapped
Speaker 2: around her tea cup, absorbing rather than judging the shape
Speaker 2: of my curiosity. Finally she spoke, her voice quiet and textured,
Speaker 2: rippled in the hush. I was a child the year
Speaker 2: the river overflowed, nineteen twenty eight, there was a flood
Speaker 2: like no other. Lives lost, homes ruined, two summers running
Speaker 2: where nothing but moss and mold grew in the gardens,
Speaker 2: where my father labored every day. We all hurt, But
Speaker 2: there was more than damage. There was a fear so
Speaker 2: great it felt bigger than the river. After people lost
Speaker 2: more than soil, Some lost their will. She paused, searching
Speaker 2: my face as if for permission to continue. My mother
Speaker 2: was one of the last to call it rain, always
Speaker 2: saying you must respect a hard storm, You must call
Speaker 2: it what it is, so you can prepare for better days.
Speaker 2: But the year after, when the river was rebuilt the
Speaker 2: gardens replanted, something changed in the evening talks and morning greetings.
Speaker 2: Ada's hands trembled, but she pressed on. Neighbors would pause
Speaker 2: on flooded streets, look at the sky and say, ah,
Speaker 2: night air. The Jews generous this year, Soon enough, nobody asked.
Speaker 2: It was as if the word itself called misfortune. She
Speaker 2: set her cup aside, voiced gentler, now not a single rule,
Speaker 2: no town meeting, no old wives forbidding the truth. Just
Speaker 2: each wanted a new start. So word by word, year
Speaker 2: by year, rain became a thing you stopped seeing, like
Speaker 2: grief that softens with time. The river still swells, sometimes
Speaker 2: too much, and the gardens still sparkle by dawn, but
Speaker 2: no one hurries for shelter, nor recalls soaked days with dread.
Speaker 2: It's as if the memory was left swimming in the river,
Speaker 2: carried off past the bend. Ada's gaze moved to the
Speaker 2: window where twilight shadowed the garden path. Some say it's
Speaker 2: a kindness. Nature gives us what we need. But in riverfield,
Speaker 2: rain never arrives. While we watch, the town grows unafraid,
Speaker 2: and what is given is never counted against us. If
Speaker 2: you want my advice, Felix, let the mystery cover you
Speaker 2: like the morning mist. There are truths that grow stronger
Speaker 2: for not being named. I listened, feeling something between humility
Speaker 2: and awe. There was no plot, no sorcery, only the
Speaker 2: layered sediment of human need poured year by year until
Speaker 2: habit became instinct. The choice lay not in denying nature,
Speaker 2: but in building a future on hope instead of loss.
Speaker 2: I suppose the festival, I ventured, the night time strolls,
Speaker 2: the dew rituals their more than tradition. Ada nodded. Most
Speaker 2: of our rituals were born to mark survival, not denial.
Speaker 2: The flower festivals are remembrance, even as it pretends only
Speaker 2: to celebrate beauty. We think we float above trouble, But
Speaker 2: in truth we learn to look straight at what we
Speaker 2: love and to let the rest pass us by. The
Speaker 2: cups emptied the light outside, now feathering silver across AIDA's flagstones.
Speaker 2: She placed her hand over mine with surprising firmness. Don't
Speaker 2: let yourself believe we are fools, or Charlatan's or lost
Speaker 2: in dream. We mourned what we had to Afterward, we
Speaker 2: chose to remember only what keeps us whole. The conversation
Speaker 2: turned softer, Ada recalling particular roses, the way her father
Speaker 2: coaxed prize winning blooms from stubborn sore. I thanked her,
Speaker 2: gathering not just answers, but a feeling of acceptance. As
Speaker 2: I stood to go, she said, you'll find every town
Speaker 2: has a thing it does not want to see. Ours
Speaker 2: simply made a garden of forgetting. I left AIDA's door
Speaker 2: and paused beneath the pendulous bow of a birch. Distant
Speaker 2: laughter from Main Street drifted on the air. Somewhere, a
Speaker 2: child's voice recited a poem for the closing competition, each
Speaker 2: line ending in praise of sun and the gentle dew.
Speaker 2: My notes, for the first time felt less like a
Speaker 2: record of contradiction than a chronicle of deliberate, communal beauty.
Speaker 2: I walked slowly back through town. What I'd witnessed could
Speaker 2: not be disproved, nor was it an idle fancy. Rain fell,
Speaker 2: gardens flourished, rivers ran high, and yet no one living
Speaker 2: here spoke the word, nor recounted the sensation in that
Speaker 2: active forgetting. They had created not an absence but a sanctuary.
Speaker 2: Their children skipped barefoot over stones, wet from the night's blessing.
Speaker 2: The river's his annual threat had mutated through stories left
Speaker 2: untold into a background hum that only sharpened the day's relief.
Speaker 2: The urge to correct, to challenge, to display the camera's
Speaker 2: record faded. People here had found a version of peace
Speaker 2: in mutual accord, a gentler legacy than caution or vigilance.
Speaker 2: The very possibility of disaster was not eliminated but set
Speaker 2: aside with such seamless devotion that it no longer threatened
Speaker 2: daily joy. The next morning, the festival's last official event,
Speaker 2: a closing chorus beside the river offered a final tableau.
Speaker 2: The gardens, delirious with color and thick with bees, glistened
Speaker 2: as if still drying from a cleansing storm. Ben grinned
Speaker 2: as he handed me a book of festival poems. No
Speaker 2: better whether in all my years, he said, I could
Speaker 2: have told him what I'd seen, what I'd measured. Instead,
Speaker 2: I read a stanza aloud about the Dawn's gift, ever fresh,
Speaker 2: ever sure, and saw not a single wind hints from
Speaker 2: the crowd. Their happiness was whole, yet undisturbed by the
Speaker 2: barely their paradox at its edge. I felt a quiet
Speaker 2: satisfaction in their resilience, a humility in my own restless
Speaker 2: need to define, to correlate, to resolve. As I returned
Speaker 2: to the inn to pack, missus Lyell pressed a jar
Speaker 2: of jam into my hand, then patted my arm. Dews
Speaker 2: already thick as cream. Won't see better for the roses
Speaker 2: this year, I smiled, not suggesting rain. We both knew
Speaker 2: what we meant. By midday my suit case was packed.
Speaker 2: The train waited, steely and indifferent, on the edge of
Speaker 2: the now familiar lushness. The sky alternated between bright and shaded,
Speaker 2: thin clouds, painting fast changing shadows across the fields. I
Speaker 2: paused at the edge of maple Lane, standing where the
Speaker 2: river's song came clearest In that soft may air. The
Speaker 2: delicate trace of mist hung just above the roof tops.
Speaker 2: Silvering tiles and fence rails poured in the moment before
Speaker 2: day's heat would lift it away. I thumbed my little
Speaker 2: note book, open its last page ready. The pen hovered,
Speaker 2: then wrote it never did rain in that town, except
Speaker 2: every day. As the train pulled away, I watched riverfield
Speaker 2: shrink and shimmer behind me, flowers blazing in the green windows,
Speaker 2: winking in sun, not a raincoat in sight. A quiet
Speaker 2: part of me wondered, not for the last time, if
Speaker 2: reality could be shaped by consensus, if memory and need
Speaker 2: could entwine so snugly that even nature agreed to wear
Speaker 2: a softer face. Beauty, after all, has its own systems
Speaker 2: for survival. Some truths are beloved enough to change the wet.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one,