When the rain comes by Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez

we don’t imagine we’ll drown. We feel every fat raindrop on our scalp as we hurry to class, to work, to the market. Our children jump in puddles, soaking the bottom of their pants. We hold the umbrellas over our abuelitas, our lolos, our aunties while they waddle along. We rush to the subway, careful not to slip on the slick stairs. We try to dodge the icky subway drip, but it hits us on the back of our necks. The subway platform is inundated. Water leaks into the train cars and everyone squeezes to one side. Street corners pool with murky water that seeps into our socks. New York City in September smells like rotten sewer, hot piss, and wet dog. The bus travels slower than usual as it navigates the new rivers forming in the streets. Bumper to bumper traffic and we’re stuck in the bus for hours. Lightning splits the sky and thunderous cries follow.

When we were younger, when we lived in the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Rico, in the Philippines, in Nepal, in Haiti, in Guyana, in Korea—we loved playing in the rain, in the mud chasing our little brothers. It caressed our brown bodies, washed away the dirt, our fears, and our sins. The air smelled of earth, of eucalyptus, of amapolas. But today’s frigid howling wind reminds us of the mudslides, the floods, the hurricanes, the destruction—all we lost and had to rebuild. We warn our children, tell them we’ve tasted this sour loss before. We feel it in our bones. Our trick elbows won’t stop click, click, clicking.

“The rain comes and does not stop until it’s too late.”

Our children don’t listen. They’re young and want to play. They’re teenagers and want to be with their friends. They’re in their 20s and don’t care what we have to say. They’re in their 30s and 40s and have their own troubles and worries.

Our phones brighten with a flash flood shriek: “Severe Weather Warning for Queens County.” We should’ve stayed home. Should’ve taped our windows shut, should’ve plugged the gaps of our doors with towels. We should’ve removed everything from the floor: the kids’ toys, the carpet, the sofa, the blankets, the socks our husbands forget to pick up, the shoes our girlfriends, our lovers, left by the door. Should’ve unplugged our space heaters. Should’ve demanded the landlord fix the leaks. We left our countries afraid we might die there, and now we might die here.

After hours of downpour, the water is up to our shins. We trudge through it and lift our aching knees. The water is heavy, dense with anger, also trying to find a way out. We carry our babies on our hips, on our backs, on our shoulders.

“Shhh, bǎobǎo, shhhh,” we coo to our children who cry because they are wet, cold, and hungry. The rain continues to plop, plop, plop against the glittering concrete.

We weave through the streets on our mopeds because we still have deliveries to make. The wind slaps our face, punches our chest, and rattles our helmets like a protection spell: shhhhh, listen. We want to go home on the 7 to Sunnyside, to Woodside, to Jackson Heights, to Corona, to Elmhurst, to Flushing.

We make it home or shelter in place. We text or we call our loved ones:

“Are you okay?”

“Come home now!”

“Where are you?”

“Yea, we’re safe.”

“I’m stuck in traffic.”

“I love you.”

“Please answer me.”

When we have no choice but to evacuate our homes, we carry what we can: black garbage bags filled with the clean clothes we can find—oversized t-shirts we use to sleep, jean shorts we’ve been meaning to store under our beds, dress pants we were saving for the start of new jobs, tattered gray sweatpants our mothers’ insisted we throw out, jeans with holes from the friction of our thighs. We loot our closets, our drawers, our mattresses for the birth certificates, the marriage licenses, the green cards, the copies of our asylum applications, the tax documents—we stuff all of these in a tote bag and shove it in the first backpack we find. Our children want to carry their toys: dolls, race cars, puzzles, stuffed animals. Because we can’t bear their crying anymore, we let them. We take our dogs, our cats, our birds but leave their food, their beds, their cute outfits. We also leave the family photos, the dress shoes, the books we thought we’d have time to read, the rice cookers, and the house plants. 

They find us long after the storms end, after the city has stopped honking and the lights twinkle like stars. We died trapped in our unsanctioned basement apartments, locked in our windowless rooms. We screamed at the top of our lungs, for someone passing by to hear our mouths filling with water. We slammed our fragile bodies against the door. We prayed as the frigid water rose and numbed our bodies. We choked and drowned surrounded by our belongings and our dreams. We died alone. We died holding each other. Our illegal homes, our first tombs. We had just turned 86, or 50, or 46 years old. We would have turned 3.

For days, trash floats like a parade down the street. Cars are towed. Tree branches are tossed into woodchippers and turned into dust. We crowd the laundromats, clean our clothes, and dry what remains. We bury and mourn our losses quickly because we survived and tomorrow we have school, we have work, we have to go to the market.  

The mayor, the representatives, the governor, the news, bemoan Hurricane Ida and the city’s old stormwater infrastructure. They yell about “brutal floodings” and about “unprecedented historic weather.” They blame climate change, republicans, democrats, immigrants, god. They move on with promises of improvements and renovations.

They chant: “We’re New York strong!”

We weep, and our salty tears cleanse the streets until the rain comes again.

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SONIA ALEJANDRA RODRÍGUEZ — Sonia Alejandra (they/she) is a writer and educator living in Queens, New York. They are an English Professor at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY). Sonia Alejandra participated in writing workshops at Tin House, VONA, and Kweli. Their stories have been published in Latino Book Review Magazine, Kweli Journal, Variant Lit, Strange Horizons, The Acentos Review, Longreads, Okay Donkey, Reckon Review, and elsewhere. Follow Sonia Alejandra on IG @soniaalejandrawrites. 

Art by OLADOSU MICHAEL EMERALD — Oladosu (he/him) is the author of the poetry book Every Little Thing That Moves, an art editor at Surging Tide Magazine, a digital/musical/visual artist, an actor, a photographer, and an athlete. He is a Pioneer Fellow of the Muktar Aliyu Art Residency, Minna, Niger State, Nigeria, the winner of GPC Neurodivergent Poetry Contest, winner of Off the Limit Art contest, winner of Spring Annual Poetry Contest, second runner-up in the Fireflies poetry contest, and more. Say hi to him on Twitter @garricologist and @garrycologist on Instagram.