The Raincoat

They said one single raincoat
would shelter the entire city —
and they were believed.
Vast, indeed, its sleeves could hold the streets.
It was a kind of cloak like none before,
a new erection of progress,
argued to be more economical and secure
than each person having their own raincoat,
for the official truth was deemed superior
to individual truths.
The few skeptics had their heads severed;
only the very lucky escaped into exile.
And while the rain poured down like an ancient judgment,
the raincoat glued people together with slogans, cowardice, spit, and mold —
an embrace in the name of the common good.
Children were born from soft, malleable plastic,
and learned from early, like young goats,
not to ask questions
about what lay beyond the fabric above their heads.
The raincoat kept growing,
devouring still-awake hills, forest shadows, and fertile fields —
and they said:
“This is how it must be.
Whoever has no rain in their mind
is already soaked to the bone.”
The city forgot
what the open sky looked like,
and began to breathe in the fear
that freedom makes one sick.
In the end, the raincoat was torn apart one night
by the scissors of a child's laughter —
a child who had asked:
“But what if it doesn’t rain at all?”
And then it was seen —
the sky was like paper,
not a single drop had fallen in years.
They stared at each other, stunned and speechless,
hands covering the shame of silence.
The raincoat collapsed with a crash over rooms and history,
and from it were later fashioned
bright flags, welcome mats,
and costumes for the clowns of the next regime