{"id":5940,"date":"2022-11-03T12:11:20","date_gmt":"2022-11-03T12:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5940"},"modified":"2022-11-09T11:25:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T11:25:59","slug":"just-enough-rain-by-p-h-lee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5940","title":{"rendered":"Just Enough Rain<\/em><\/strong> by P. H. Lee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just Enough Rain<\/em><\/strong> by P. H. Lee (Giganotosaurus<\/em>, 1st<\/sup> May 2021)1<\/sup> opens with an arresting first line:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I wasn\u2019t surprised when God showed up for Mom\u2019s funeral. They\u2019d always been close.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After the funeral service is over, Annie goes over to talk with God and they have a long and wandering conversation (His friendship with her mother, His sending angels to remove the sarcomas produced by a previous bout of cancer, etc.) before God tells her He is thinking of bringing Annie\u2019s mother back to life. Once He ascertains that Annie has no objections (expected inheritance, etc.) there are sounds of movement from inside the coffin.
This opening passage is followed by a short second chapter which tells of the parable of Honi the Circle-Drawer (Honi asks God to provide rain, and then the correct<\/em> amount of rain when there is a flood) before the rest of the story settles into its groove, which is that of Annie\u2019s love life. This latter begins with her resurrected mother telling Annie that she wants grandchildren:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cYou know,\u201d she\u2019d say, as if I hadn\u2019t heard it a hundred times before, \u201cone of my great regrets was dying without getting to meet my grandchildren.\u201d
\u201cMom,\u201d I\u2019d say, \u201cyou\u2019re still alive.\u201d
\u201cOnly because of a miracle, dear,\u201d she\u2019d say, \u201cand we mustn\u2019t count on miracles. What happened to Brett, anyway? I liked Brett. Good Jewish boy. And a doctor!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After more of this kind of thing, and some of Annie\u2019s backstory (a vision she had at 15 about saving monarch butterflies from extinction), Annie\u2019s mother calls her and says that she has phoned God and had a word with him about Annie\u2019s love life. Annie later experiences the result of this intercession in a hilarious passage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was on the Blue Line, reading The Guermantes Way<\/em>\u2013the new translation\u2013when I noticed him\u2013her? them?\u2013sitting across from me, beautiful.
It was their skin, I think, that caught my attention. Strong, muscled, but still soft as a feather. I sucked in my breath and, without thinking, bit my lower lip. There was no question of going back to The Guermantes Way<\/em>. I just sat, and looked at them, beautiful, God they were beautiful.
Then, just as we left Elmonica\/SW 170th<\/sup>, they stood up\u2013tall, broadshouldered, the slowest curve of their chin\u2013and unfurled their wings of holy light, almost the length of the entire train car.
\u201cOh no,\u201d I said, but I couldn\u2019t look away.
\u201cHARK,\u201d they said, their voice filling the entire railcar. \u201cBE NOT AFRAID, FOR I AM A MESSENGER OF THE LORD YOUR GOD.\u201d
Some people were fumbling with their phones, but most of them just gawped, open-mouthed. I felt the cold-warm rush of embarrassment and I wanted to hide under my seat almost as much as I wanted to keep staring.
He\u2019d sent an angel. Of course He\u2019d sent an angel.
The angel turned to a slightly paunchy man\u2013nice curly hair, though\u2013in glasses, khakis and a polo shirt. \u201cDAVID ELIAS RUTENBERG,\u201d it said.
David blanched and looked for all the world like he\u2019d just had a dream about taking a final exam in his underwear. \u201cY-yes?\u201d he finally managed.
The angel pointed to me and I tried my very best to blend into the seat cushion. \u201cTHIS WOMAN, ANAT BETHESDA MEAGELE, IS SINGLE. SHE HAS A GOOD JOB AND SHE\u2019S EMOTIONALLY MATURE AND READY FOR A COMMITMENT. YOU SHOULD ASK FOR HER NUMBER. SO SAYETH THE LORD.\u201d
David stared at me and swallowed hard. His face was covered in sweat.
\u201cTAKE HER SOMEWHERE NICE, NOTHING TOO FANCY, IN THE $20-30 RANGE,\u201d continued the angel, just when I thought that this couldn\u2019t get worse. \u201cARGUE ABOUT WHETHER TO SPLIT THE CHECK BUT THEN PRETEND TO GO TO THE BATHROOM AND SECRETLY PAY.\u201d
David, still sweating, gave me an appraising look that made me instantly aware of every wrinkle and sag. \u201cShe\u2019s, uh\u201d he started.
\u201cYES,\u201d said the angel, turning their magnificent gaze upon me. \u201cHURRY IT UP.\u201d
\u201cShe\u2019s a bit old for me, isn\u2019t she?\u201d
The angel snapped their gaze back to him. \u201cWELL YOU\u2019RE NO SPRING CHICKEN YOURSELF, DAVE.\u201d
Dave looked like he\u2019d just swallowed a toad. \u201cI-is that also the word of G-G-God?\u201d he managed.
\u201cNO, DAVE, THAT\u2019S JUST A SIMPLE OBSERVATION THAT ANYONE COULD MAKE. YOU\u2019RE NOT EXACTLY GOING TO LAND A SUPERMODEL.\u201d
\u201cUh, well,\u201d said Dave, and pulled the emergency brake.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Annie subsequently phones God and tells him not to intercede again, before asking for the angel\u2019s telephone number. God phones her back with it, and Annie and the (monomaniacally dull) angel subsequently go on a car crash date. Worse, he then pesters her with a series of texts asking to see her again and, when those are unanswered, another series asking what went wrong.
Annie (bearing in mind her mother\u2019s comments about being too quick to judge) eventually agrees to another date with the angel. This one works out better, even though their dinner conversation spans an eclectic range of topics (the semiotics of the translations of Remembrance of Things Lost<\/em>, Korean Food, angelic languages, etc.). By the fourth date they are having sex, or whatever word you would use to describe congress between a woman and a being who, unclothed, has a distinctly inhuman form:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Their human guise\u2013clothes, but also skin and eyes and everything\u2013lay in a pile beneath them. What remained was a great cloud of a thousand different hands, in each hand a different eye, in each eye a different name of God, all wreathed in light and holy fire.
\u201cTHIS IS ME,\u201d said the angel, with a voice that seemed to come from everywhere.
I stepped forward, took one of the hands, and kissed it. \u201cYou\u2019re beautiful,\u201d I said, and meant it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, and after sections that detail Annie\u2019s conversations with (a) her mother about the parable of Honi the Circle-Drawer, and (b) the angel about the unpublished Rimbaud translations in her notebooks (the story is fairly discursive throughout), Annie phones her mother to tell her that she is pregnant. The story ends with, among other things, a discussion of God\u2019s likely reaction, what Annie intends to do with her child, and what happened \u201clast time\u201d (i.e. with Jesus).
This is not only an original story (the idea of a slightly bumbling God manifest in the world is relatively novel or at least underused in genre fiction) but also an amusing, and sometimes hilarious, one. It is, however, slightly more sprawling than it needs to be (the ending is a bit wafflely, for instance) and some tightening up would have benefited the whole piece. That said, I enjoyed the story\u2019s various diversions\u2014the parable, Annie\u2019s butterfly vision and whether saving them was God\u2019s purpose for her, the discussions about Proust\u2019s Remembrance of Things Lost<\/em>, etc., etc. These gave what could have been a piece of froth some thoughtful heft and, at times, made it a wise and reflective work.
Well worth a look.
***+ (Good to Very Good). 9,550 words. Story link<\/a>.

1. Giganotosaurus<\/em> pays $100 for its stories, which is about 1 cent a word for this piece. I\u2019m surprised this 2022 Nebula Award finalist didn\u2019t end up in a better paying market.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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