the horrific drought

 I cannot remember the last time it rained.

I can remember the days it almost rained. Storms have passed through us, over us. I have watched giant gray thunderheads spew lightning to the north and west and east.

The air has gotten sort of thick and moist, and the wind has picked up and blown cold around me.

Sometimes a few drops make it onto the porch, fat lackadaisical drops, completely uninterested in the plight of my mom's tomatoes.

When storms are in the area we all take a deep breath and wait, at least I do.

I watch the radar and feel this dread that nothing will come our way.

Even when massive green and red storm systems appear on the screen, the blobs move above and below us, weave just left or right -- or disappear altogether.

The corn crops are dead, have been dead for a while. Whatever isn't dead has been irrigated, probably further draining what is now rationed water.

We beat the Dust Bowl for the hottest month ever recorded in U.S. history.

The Platte River is empty.

My dad fretfully waters the vegetable garden, hoping the well doesn't dry out.

My mom looked at the sky the other day, and said "it feels like it's never going to rain again."

She has left easily soaked boxes outside, refused to close windows -- despite assertions from my dad that it will rain -- and offered the interior of her car as sacrifice to rain gods so typically tempted by an open sunroof.

And, nothing.

I can image how real sacrifices for rain came about -- not so much to appease the heavens, but to let out a nihilistic scream of anger and mourning for a world gone dead without water.