A Drop Of Petrichor [Complete]

A Glimpse

Noor | Rayyan 

The petals of roses were feather soft in her hands. With a smile etched on her face, she sprinkled water on them with the care of a mother. Her plants were her babies, her most prized possession.

She couldn't afford a lavish garden. Money was always tight but that couldn't deter her from keeping a few plants of her choice. The small shade outside the house was her sanctuary for the most part of the day. Sometimes, she'd lose herself in a book, or she'd mark the test papers of her school students or sometimes she'd just dwell on the time that had passed so soon.

She was a nature lover. It gave her happiness that materialistic things of this world could never. There wasn't much about her life. She was a university graduate, working as a teacher in a private school nearby. Twenty three years of her life had never been easy but that couldn't falter her spirits and the hope in her never diminished.

It had always been there within her, the art of finding good in every bad, and the beauty in every gruesome detail of this world and the love hidden behind the clouds of hate. If people were always interested in dark clouds her eyes were focused on the silver lining. No matter what life threw her way, she always seemed to find it. She always did.

Finishing the task in hand, she rose up from her crouched position when it hit her. The smell she'd never mistake. She opened the door and went into the Veranda.

A deep inhale, the Petrichor hitting every pore of her being. She was a pluviophile, but it weren't the drops of blessing tumbling down the sky that she loved the most. It was the smell of damp soil and the joy it's about to bring.

Standing under the open sky, blanketed by the dark clouds, she extended her arms. Dark clouds; the sign of distress, that's what they write in books but every dark cloud has a silver lining and for her, here, the rain was the silver lining.

"Noor! Get inside! It's about to rain!"

The voice made Noor turn toward the backyard door where a not so pleased Izma stood. Shaking her head, Noor smiled at her sister like there was no worry in this world. The first drop of rain made a home on her palm and she knew what was about to come. Closing her eyes she let the water drench her completely. Rain was the power. Rain was pure. It felt as if it were washing away all her sorrows she had hidden behind her smile.

Rain was the cure.

It had always been.

***

12 o'clock. Midnight. A new day. The old shit-show.

Focused on the drink in his hand, he tuned out the blabber which had lost its meaning ten minutes into the party. Resting his fore and middle finger on his lips, in a perfect manner of concentration―when he felt as detached with the social scene here as a passerby outside the building―he looked around, just to humor himself.

Corporate negotiations, fine. Networking? In full swing. Checking someone else out when your date is right beside you? Normal. Whispers of 'your place or mine' yeah, that. He smirked and pushed his ebony hair out of his forehead.

Yeah, he was done for the night.

He rose up from his seat when he saw a vision in champagne gold making her way toward him. Not an unknown face. But not someone he was in the mood to engage with tonight. Some other time. His lack of interest must've shown on his face. He didn't stop to inspect.

The winter air welcomed him as he came outside in the parking lot and got inside his car. His eyes held hollowness in them, his eyes which were a living reminder of his mother but lacked the warmth hers had to offer. His were cold, just like the weather of this city tonight.

The city lights reflected on his impassive face. There was nothing to decipher there. Emotions and Rayyan Ahmed Khan were poles apart. He let his heart feel only two things, hate and passion. Love, he wasn't well-versed in that, pretty ignorant for a man of his caliber but whenever he hated, he hated with passion. The stupid pumping organ we call heart wasn't there in him, or he told himself. It was a stone, carved on which were some of his life rules.

Leave the emotions outta door, especially the emotions which make you weak and Rayyan Ahmed Khan was anything but that. Power was the ultimate goal and he had achieved that long back. The owner of one of the top companies in the country, he was a tough competitor for his rivals, a stone hearted moron for his right hand, Haseeb and a hot handsome confusion for opposite sex. This was what people thought about him and he had absolutely no fucks to give to their opinions. Do everything people disregarded. Piss this world off. That's the only way of getting to the top―the carved rules.

Money and power, everything else was a non-significant probability, love being one of those. He never let anything got to his head to the point that it'd make him weak. That's why love had no place in his life.

Love―the emotion that makes you do things you should never. The mere concept of it was pathetic. It didn't give his mother anything. The man she loved left her when she needed him the most. The betrayal tore her into pieces. She couldn't see past that pathetic excuse of life and soon, succumbed to her fragile condition and an even vulnerable heart.

The incident left a deep mark on his personality and made him who he was today―a twenty seven year old self-made man, who was now the biggest rival for his father and his company.

But he never had it easy. When you are all out on your own, people would gather around like vultures and try to rob you off anything they find valuable. Life was tough but it had made him tougher.

He knew hate. He knew destruction.

He looked outside the window. The view was enchanting but no one saw the deep darkness these big cities held within. The lights were a façade, just like the fake smiles people put on. The lips gloss grins and the sophisticated charm―lies. The real faces were marred with lust and menace.

His eyes followed a lone drop of water which fell on the glass forming a streak behind. It was about to rain.

And he hated it.

The petrichor always filled his heart with the memories he never wanted to revisit. He didn't know why people found solace in something as messy as rain. It made things sloppy, and before you know it, you are slipping and falling into a whirlpool of nothingness. The rain was just a cover up to hide all the wrongs by the heavy blanket of drops of euphoria people were obsessed with.

Rain was the cause of everything bad.

It had always been.

***