Rain over the city is not like the simple sky-thrown water of the jungle. It has other things in it, chemicals drawn from the poisonous air across the sea. When it rains, they put great sails up over the crops to protect them, and everyone gets indoors and stays there. After the rains there is a thin, greasy film over everything, a clear, plasticky stuff that must be scraped off. Rain is foul in Shadrapar, then as now, and thankfully it came no more than about three times a year.
