After Us - Connie Wanek Rain is falling through the roof. And all that prospered under the sun, the books that opened in the morning and closed at night, and all day turned their pages to the light; the sketches of boats and strong forearms and clever faces, and of fields and barns, and of a bowl of eggs, and lying across the piano the silver stick of a flute; everything invented and imagined, everything whispered and sung, all silenced by cold rain. The sky is the color of gravestones. The rain tastes like salt, and rises in the streets like a ruinous tide. We spoke of millions, of billions of years. We talked and talked. Then a drop of rain fell into the sound hole of the guitar, another onto the unmade bed. And after us, the rain will cease or it will go on falling, even upon itself.