Petrichor

Richard A. Shury

A standard day or month or year is dry wind across the plains, and not much else. It sits there, casing solid against the wind, sublayers absorbing the sun’s immense heat and storing it in cells.

Once in a way, an animal will wander up, sniff at it and, bored, wander away again. Or a trail of ants will bump against it, usually going around and not across. There is even the occasional drop of bird poo, which gradually fades away.

Still, it waits, a tarnished boulder.

Once in a way, the Collector, large and slow, will dip down from the sky to collect the excess electricity. It can be heard from miles away, droning in and hovering. A cable dangles out of its belly to fit perfectly into a waiting port. The exchange is quick, and then the Collector is gone again, off to the next one. The port cover slides closed, and the machine is still once more.

It sits still, and waits.

Then there is a day, a day when the air changes, imperceptibly to anyone not local. But the natives, plant and nomad and steel alike, they look up and they sniff and they sense it. Days away still, but inevitable as the sunrise.

The first drops tink off its carcass, splashing against the hardened metal. When the downpour starts, when the rush really begins, when the flow rate exceeds a programmed value, it awakens. Or rather, it knows it is time to be awake; its legs uncoil, slowly, and it stands, a freak armadillo on metal feet. It walks slowly, always slowly. It tests the ground with slim appendages, sensors like antennae, sniffing for the scent of newly-wet soil. When it finds a suitably saturated area, it burrows in deep, churning the soil.

Within the machine, compartments slide open. Seeds and nutrients are prepared, mixed, dropped into chutes. Brought forth with gentle pressure, down flexible tubes, down at last into friendly ground. Deposited by the machine’s tender arms, tucked into soil.

The machine moves on, to the next patch of ground. Over the scant days of rainfall it works tirelessly, diligently, planting and stirring the earth into life. And then, as quickly as they have come, the rains are gone again. The earth, tinged now with a thin green carpet, brushed once more by the sun’s heavy heat. And every season, a little bit greener.

The machine retracts its legs, nestling into the waiting earth. It resumes its slumber. Inert but not dead. Just waiting. Simply waiting.