A Giant Disc and Rain

It had always been bad here. When I was a kid people said I came from the wrong side of the tracks. By the time I grew up, no one could find the tracks anymore. You would mug someone one day and be mugged the next. Sometimes, both would occur in the same day.

I had a permanent place to live which put me in the minority. Most lived under bridges or in cardboard boxes. They feared to leave these places for fear they'd find them occupied when they returned.

A job was even rarer. The economy had completely collapsed. Even fast food jobs were difficult to get. Turnover matched the local mortality rate. No one remembered what the word career meant.

The streets were in terrible shape, but no one drove anymore. Even bicycles were a strange sight. They were made, but few could afford to buy them.

Society had degraded to a cruel mockery of its former self. If you weren't a thief, you were a con artist. Many were even worse.

I once knew the meaning of the word retirement. We tend to forget the definitions of words we no longer use. No one had spoken of retiring in many years.

The land looked bleak and the future even worse. Life itself had become the cruelest of punishments. Many still remembered enough of religion to refuse suicide. They didn't want to spend eternity in an even worse predicament.

One day, the sky rumbled. Even rain was feared for the toxins it sometimes brought. On my way inside, I noticed something large, round, white, and flat which lay at the top of the hill. Its whiteness caught my eye the most. Nothing gleamed like that anymore.

There was a single stroke of lightning as I crossed the threshold. Then the heavens opened. Instead of beginning with a gentle sprinkle, the rain immediately dropped in buckets. As it fell, a torrent of white bubbling foam ran down the street. My brown lawn sprouted green at its passage. The rainfall continued for a half an hour in this manner.

When it ceased, I ventured outside. I noticed that every lawn I could see had become as green as mine. In addition, the once crumbling street looked freshly paved. I turned and saw that a new coat of paint had been applied to my house. All of them had fresh paint. Where the land was vacant, new homes seemed to have sprouted like plants.

Other people had come out to look upon this strange wonder. They all looked as if they were wearing new clothes. For the first time, I noticed that I was wearing a new suit!

The last thing I noticed before going back inside was the absence of the white disc. I once knew of a commercial product reputed to cure all manner of physical woes in like manner. What was it called?