It began as many storms tend to, during the middle of what had previously been a clear night. It was preceded by the long, mournful wail of a neighbourhood stray, camped out beneath his downstairs neighbours window boxes.   

He dreamt he was swimming.  He dreamt he was swimming in a box slowly filling with black water.  He dreamt he was swimming and then he dreamt he was drowning. 

Water filled his mouth and he struggled to keep his head above the rapidly rising surf.  His arms felt heavy, like a large plastic sheet was stuck to him, absorbing the water, pulling him down, pulling him under, pulling him down and down and – 

He woke on the floor, the steely tang of blood on his tongue where he had bitten into it.  Disoriented, his vision blurred, he tried to right himself on the floor, planting his hands, palms down beneath him.  The carpet squelched under his weight as he levered himself onto his knees.

The t-shirt he had worn to sleep was stuck to him, slick against his back. His cotton sleeping pants were just as wet and just as stuck to his skin. The carpet beneath him was flooded and briefly as he began to sink slightly into the mess of carpet beneath him, he thought he must have pissed himself quite severely.  

The room was dark though a sliver of the streetlight had fought its way through a crack in the blinds and seemed to point accusingly towards him.  He couldn’t clear his vision either and his head felt as if someone was beating a steady drumbeat into his skull.  

At about the same moment he heard the shouting from the hallway outside his apartment, he came to the realization that it was raining inside his bedroom, directly above him and probably had been for some good amount of time.

More shouting.  They probably thought he had drowned himself in his bathtub or taken a shower with a toaster.  They probably imagined a bloated, distorted him, askew at the bottom of the bathtub, water sloshing over the sides, into the seams and cracks and down into the lower apartments, down and down and –

He held out his hands, palms up, feeling for the rain blindly, blurred eyes still closed.  No rain hit his hands.  No water pooled in his palms.  

He looked up and there, above him, was no hole in the ceiling of his bedroom, no gaping wound in the structure of the building that had allowed a torrential downpour to unleash itself upon him in his sleep.  

No, instead what awaited above his head, above the head of one Montgomery J. Chelmsford III, was not calamity, not catastrophe that hovered above him; rather what floated, seemingly of it’s own accord in the air above his head, was a small, dark, storm cloud, maybe 2 feet wide.  

A flare of lightning flashed across the surface of the dark cloud, introducing itself. 

The muffled shouting is replaced by the splintering of his front door and louder, closer shouting as his landlord and a couple of neighbours come bursting through.  

He would be touched that they cared if it wasn’t so embarrassing being found by them when they burst into the bedroom, on his knees, Christ-like with his dripping arms outside of the clouds wake, soaked to the bone, his clothes pressed to him in a rather more revealing way than he’d like; and a small, dark, roiling storm cloud inexplicably hovering above his head.

The conversation could really only go one way:

Landlord: Um…

Monty: yeah. (pointing upwards apologetically)

Landlord:  you okay?

Monty:  I guess so.

    Landlord:  That, um, well, does it turn off?

    Monty:  Honestly?  I don’t really know. 

Landlord.  It better -  (looking around at the wet floor)  - and you better get this cleaned up.  Toot sweet, yeah.

    Then he turns, with his backup, and they leave, slowly, punctuating each others footsteps with brief, nervous glances backwards.  The landlord, the last to leave, props the door in it’s frame and mutters something about being back to fix it later.

Monty reaches his now dried hands slowly upwards, towards the cloud above his head.  They pass through, meaningless, but wet again.  Monty sighs and gets up, heading towards the bathroom for some towels to sop up the mess.  

The cloud follows, so does the wet and so does the mess.  He’s going to need more towels.

Maybe a tarp, even.

 

--------------

 

    Y’know, Like A Bagel’s weekday lunchtime crowd consisted of mostly senior citizens who barely made the walk over from the surrounding condominiums.   Sprinkled in amongst the complaining and the lip smacking and the falling debris from bagels piled too high with cream cheese and lox or tuna, for fleshy, wrinkly mouths to handle.  

Most days, the room is full, those tables not taken by grandmothers and grandfathers are occupied by their grandchildren from the high school across the street who’ve skipped out on class or have an hour for lunch.  

Tables were usually fit tight together to maximize the seating space, with customers shoulder to shoulder on normal business days, usually. Only today, a bright, clear spring afternoon, the floor is slick with rain and there is a wide swath of real-estate in the front corner of the room, where only two men sit.  They are surrounded by a row of empty tables, stretched around them in a circle.  

One man is wearing a large yellow rain slicker.  The other is being consistently rained on by a small, dark and angry looking cloud above his head.  

The waitress, an elderly gal herself, takes their order from a distance, trying to avoid the splash.  

After their orders are shouted to the woman, they settle back.  Rain slicker leans back in his chair.  Monty paws at his slicked down, soaking wet hair.

-Have you tried getting away from it?

-Every couple of hours or so.  When I think it’s not looking.  

-You think it’s looking at you?

They both look up at it.  The cloud darkens, lightening flares from within it and just as suddenly it lightens, to pale grey and the rain dries up.  

Monty says nothing.

-So it stops?

-Intermittently.  

-Something to be thankful for, I guess.

Two small, rounded Sri-Lankan men exit the kitchen with rags and begin wiping the wet tables dry.  A woman on the other side of the room clears her throat and more than one person shakes their head in dissaproval.  

The hood of the rain slicker comes down.  The man is Monty’s age, his hair is damp, unruly and semi-pressed to his head.  He takes off his glasses and cleans them on his napkin, breathing hard, open-mouthed on each lens, quickly in secession.

-Have you been to a doctor?

-Not yet.  I have four appointments this afternoon. 

    Monty runs his hands through his hair, pressing it backwards on his scalp, his fingertips, wrinkled and pruned.  He leans in closer and lowers his voice.

    -This is fucking crazy, Jude.  I mean I woke up like this.  WOKE up with this, I don’t know, thunderstorm above my head.  It’s insane.  I keep poking myself with sharp things to see if I’m still dreaming.  

    -You’re not dreaming.  I wish you were because this is ridiculous truthfully, but you’re wide awake.  As awake as I am at any rate.

    -Then maybe I’m dead.  Maybe this is a massive hallucination brought on by my flailing, dying brain.  Some attempt at holding onto –

    -Stop being a whiny cliché.  You’re alive. You’re not dead.  You’re not asleep.  This is happening to you and that storm cloud is real, motherfucker.  

    The same woman who took their orders from across the room, sets down their lunches so quickly that they clatter for a moment, revolving in place before settling, still, in front of them.

    They both pick up forks and knifes.

    -There has to be an explanation.  An explanation and a way to fix it, there has to be.

    The cloud rumbles and Monty’s damp hair begins to rise slightly. More rumbling and then it starts to rain again, sheets of rain, seemingly with little definition between raindrops, beats down on his head.  Jude pulls the hood of his rain slicker back up.  

    Monty slumps while old, eastern European women mutter under their breath.  The owner, a large bear of a man, Israeli by his accent, comes out of the kitchen, white apron stretched over his sizeable belly, grease stains like a distorted map of the world across it’s surface.

    -Enough.  You.

     He points with a metal spatula.

    -You!  Out.  Do not eat just go.  Enough of this Mishugas.  Enough!  Out.  Now.

    Neither man offers any protest, though Jude does grab half his bagel and jams it between his teeth as he throws his bag strap over his shoulders.  

    Shoulders jostling as they press through the door, Jude leans in.

    -I bet you get laid more because of the cloud.  

    Monty shakes his head and fights a smile.

    -Seriously dude.  Fuckin’ in the rain, right?

    Monty lets himself laugh at that one, as he and his cloud duck into his Toyota Camry, the fabric already long past the point of no return. 

 

------------

    Dr. Riva is a heavyset man with a large bushy mustache that sits slightly higher above his upper lip then seems appropriate.  His white coat straining against his width, his arms crossed, hands gripping biceps as if to hold them in place.  

    -Hrmmm.  One hand comes up to his chins and runs his palm over his mouth. 

    The rain from the cloud makes a crackling noise as it falls steadily against the butcher paper underneath Monty.  His legs kicked out over the side, his hands on his soaking wet knees.  He blinks the water out of his eyes and runs the back of a wet sleeve across his brow.  

    -Just woke up like this, you say?

    -Yup.

    -and you’ve tried moving away from it?

    Monty jumps off the table suddenly and springs towards the back corner of the room.  The cloud, still for a moment, then rumbling, a crack of lightning somewhere from within before tracking across the room to Monty.  It moves in a herky-jerky way, as if being yanked by an imaginary string held in the hand of an imaginary child.  

    It settles above his head as contentedly as a little storm cloud can.  The cloud lightens and the rain stops.  

    Dr. Riva consults his chart again, he taps the nib of the pen against the counter and then begins to write, the scritch of his pen loud enough to distort the sound of his voice as he mumbles under his breath along with his writing.

• patient presents…cloud of some sort…28 years old or so…tethered somehow…sentient?  

The question mark at the end of his sentence, definitive somehow.  

• Mr. Chelmsford…

• Monty.  Please.

-  Fine then.  Monty.  I have to confess I have never in my 20 or so years of practicing medicine, seen, well, anything of a sort like this.  

-  So there’s nothing to be done?

    - I didn’t say that did i?  I just said, well, I’m being honest with you here:  I haven’t the foggiest.  It seems to me as if you are a metaphor come to life.  

    -so you’re saying there’s nothing wrong with me?  Well, other than…

    -yes.  Other than the meterological event happening above your head, you’re fit as a fiddle.  You’re bloodwork came back normal.  All the tests we did, the xrays; all normal.  It doesn’t even show up on an xray in fact. If I wasn’t looking at it right now, well…  Have you been depressed lately?

    -Why do you ask that?

    -Well, traditionally, a cloud over someone’s head indicates sadness or misfortune.  Would you say you’re particularly sad or misfortunate?

    -I can’t say that I am.

    -Well perhaps a cheery disposition is all you need.

    -I’m not a terribly chipper person, doctor.

    -Perhaps you should be.

    - So that’s you’re advice then?

    -I’m afraid it is.

    Monty slides off the bench.  His barefeet slap against the floor, followed by the echoes of tiny rain drops.  The cloud, roused by his sudden movement lets off a small peal of thunder before the rain begins again.  Monty squints up into the cloud and sighs loudly.  

    Dr Riva has retreated across the room, the tips of his shoes, shiny from the splash.  

    -I am going to refer you to a friend of mine.  She’s a psychiatrist and maybe she could help you.  I’m sorry I haven’t been much help myself.

    The doctor sets the number, written on the back of his business card down on the counter where Monty had just been sitting.  He places it down and backs away, slowly, carefully, as if each step took him closer to the edge of a cliff.

    Monty picks it up and looks at it.  The ink begins to run and the stock of the card becomes blotchy with wet.  He tucks the card in his pocket.

    -Thanks for your time.  I guess?

    -You can pay the nurse on your way out.  

Monty just sighs.  The cloud lets out a large crack of lightning and thunder.  He pulls the collar of his shirt up, water falling from each side.  He barely notices.   

 

------------------

 

He feels like one of those small Chinese ladies he often sees walking around on bright sunny days with a large umbrella unfolded above their heads.  He knows that they’re intended to block the sun from their sensitive skin.  He knows that but still he tends to stare at them quizzically, a puzzle to solve.  As if there could be another reason to their Hello Kitty umbrellas.  

He wouldn’t be the only one either, invariably he’d notice at least one or two backwards glances from other passerbys.  He felt their eyes on him now, as he walked down the street.  Lunchtime crowds bustling past him on their way to or from the office, each and everyone of them deftly stepping out of the way of his wake.  The cloud, full force now was unleashing itself upon him.  His socks squelched loudly in his shoes, his shirt smelt faintly of mold and some of his hair was plastered to the inside of his ear.  

He met every eye that looked his way, defiantly.  Even stopping to angrily challenge a teenager with a face full of piercings and braces.  

-What, EXACTLY are you looking at?!?!

The kid slipped into his group of simliarlily clothed and pierced friends and they moved away as a group.  Monty laughed the rest of the way down the block.  When he stopped at the streetlight he didn’t know whether he was wiping away tears of laughter, of joy or just more rain water from his eyes.  

It didn’t matter.

 

-----------------

    She had started out sitting beside him on the bench.  IT was a nice day, blue sky, the sun was shining and it was warm to boot. They had decided to meet in the park where they used to spend a goodly amount of time smoking joints and talking.  Forever they were talking, full of opinions on everything, rarely agreeing.  They were spirited and in love and the arguments were almost as important as the sex.

    When the talking stopped, he knew, the end was just around the corner.  

    She hadn’t wanted to come.   It was still too soon.  He had asked again.  He needed to talk.  For old times sake, he had said.  So she had come, with a joint, for old times sake.  That was all he told himself.  He just needed to talk, he said.  

    So she had sat down beside him wearing the raincoat he had made her promise to wear.  The cloud, silent for the better part of the last hour, had erupted shortly before she got off the bus and was once again, pardon the phrase, raining cats and dogs.  

    So she started out next to him, kissed him hello on the cheek.  She had done her staring as she had crossed the park to him.  

    -I thought you had lost it.

    -I think I have.  

    She started out next to him but quickly and subtly receded on the bench to it’s end and then finally had to sit above him, on the back of the bench, the bottom of her rain coat taking the brunt of the wet.

    -Have you seen a doctor?

    -This morning.  He was useless, which I guess is to be expected.  

    -What did he say?

    -I need to try a sunnier disposition.  Something about me being a walking metaphor.  

    -Well you’re not the most positive person Monty.  Maybe he’s right?

    -Yeah him and the shrink he sent me to.  I called and said I was having a crisis.  I mean, I am right?  There’s a fucking rain cloud over my head.  I can’t go to work, I can’t go home.  I went to sleep and woke up in a swimming pool.  If this isn’t a crisis, well fuck. 

    -So what did the shrink say?

    -Are you seeing someone?

    -The shrink wanted to know if I was seeing someone?

She lights the joint, an eyebrow arched towards him.

    -I thought I heard someone.  When I called you.  In the background?

    -Fuck you.

    -So you are?

    -I came here because you said you needed to talk.  What the fuck is this, Monty?  There’s a rain cloud over you, maybe a little focus is needed here.  

    She passes the joint towards him.  

    -Yeah.  That’s going to work.  

    She considers the joint and him and then angrily tosses it down and stands up in one fluid motion.

    -you know what?  Fuck you.  I don’t need this.   For old times sake, remember.  I came because... well because you said... fuck I don’t know why I came but it sure as shit wasn’t to be interrogated.  Goodbye Monty.

    She turns on a heel and begins to storm off.  He catches her by the wrist, soaking her arm, streaking the light blonde hair a slightly darker blonde.  

    -Wait.  Don’t go.  I’m sorry.  I’m…I’m fucked here.  I don’t know what to do.

    She sighs and looks to the cloud, lighter now, the rain on her arm lessening.  

    -Would you fuck the hell off please?

    The cloud as if hearing the tone in her voice, lightens considerably more and then with one far off rumble, stops raining altogether.  

    -What did the shrink say?

    -The shrink was a fucking moron.

    -Predictable.  I’m surprised you went in the first place, all things considered. 

    -Yeah well, I’m sort out of options here. 

    -What did he say?

    -She.  It was a she. Pretty too so that was okay but it was just more of the same.  Be positive.  You’re too negative.  Think good thoughts.  Project positivity.  Bullshit like that.

    -Maybe you need to be more open-minded.

    -Fuck that noise.  This isn’t a mindset thing.  It only looks like a metaphor.  I have a cloud hanging above my head.  A real, no nonsense cloud and it is raining on me and me alone.  Thinking good thoughts is only going to make other people better.

    -You don’t know that.

    -I do.  I don’t need thoughts, good or any other sort.  I need answers.  Real, solid answers, like how to kill a meteorlogical event.

    Had she been a cartoon, the way she sometimes was in his head when he thought of her late at night (the Fritz the Cat/Jessica Rabbit/Robert Crumb sort of cartoon more than the Betty Rubble/Wilma Flintsone sort) there would have been a small lightbulb alight over her head.  He always could tell when she had an idea.

    -Maybe that’s what you need?  A meteorologist.  

    -You think I need to talk to a tv weatherman?

    -Yeah.  Exactly.  Or, well, someone who studies clouds at least.  You get sick you go to a doctor.  You go crazy you go to a shrink right?  Problems with your teeth, dentist.  So, you’ve got a cloud problem.  Why not a meteorologist?

    She’s crouched on her toes, hunkered on the bench holding her knees and rocking slightly with excitement.  She’s convinced herself at least.

    Monty looks at the discarded, barely smoked joint on the ground.  He considers the cloud briefly before reaching down and picking it up.  

    -It certainly is thinking outside the box.  

    He reaches for the lighter, joint gripped gently between his lips.  He smiles around it as the flame licks the dirty butted out end.  He inhales deeply.  

    Thunder.

    Not from his cloud though, a deep, far off rumbling from the horizon.  Clouds have rolled over their beautiful spring afternoon and for the first time since the clouds appearance, he is for once, the only one not getting rained on, as his dry cloud acts as a tiny umbrella.  He settles back, smiling to himself, enjoying the brief respite.  She pulls her hood over her head.

    He mumbles to himself.

    -Meteorologist huh?  Hrm.  

--------------

    Channel 8, the city’s number one rated newscast had something of an unwritten policy stating that whenever possible, it was preferred to follow a particularly tragic or frightening story with a positive weather forecast.  Of course many times tragedy strikes with nothing but doom and gloom in the forecast and during those times, tragedy is usually followed up by a feel-good local story.

    The weather for the following week was mostly sunny and that afternoon a 3 year old girl who had been missing for the better part of a month, had surfaced at the wrong end of the river wrapped in a garbage bag.

  So, Mike Mulaney, the City’s most trusted Meteorologist, waited to follow up the breaking story with a 30 second spot proclaiming the glorious week ahead.  

    Monty had spent the better part of the last two days trying to get into contact with a meteorologist – though truth be told, contact hadn’t exactly been the problem.  Convincing a man (or in a few cases, woman) of science to believe that a cloud was hovering over his head and would not leave him be, was something of a challenge.  

    In the end he had hoped the fence that surrounded the newstation’s parking lot and had camped out in the back corner waiting to spot Mulaney coming or going from his car.  He made the car on it’s way out, spotting Mulaney’s pompadour peeking above the seat as it turned into traffic.  

    The next morning it hadn’t been hard to convince the weatherman that he needed a few moments of his time, after leaping at him from behind a bush, a full blown thunderstorm waging battle above his head.  

    Monty watched the newscast from the weatherman’s office, sitting on a chair in the corner, the man’s boot tray slid beneath the feet of his chair.  Already it overflowed with rainwater.  The cloud hadn’t ceased a bit since arriving at the station.

    Mulaney returns in the state of accelerated movement with which he seems to do everything.  

    -Alright. Monty was it? Right Monty.  You have a problem.  Quite obviously, I don’t need to tell you that, I’m sure.  You’re the one soaking wet.  Now, I’ve got ten minutes before I’m due back out there, which gives us, less than seven with which to decide whether I can help you.  Less the six now that I’ve rambled on.

    -Well, sir…

    Monty is at a loss for words.  He attempts to explain once or twice but merely opens and closes his mouth, which does very little good for anyone.  Mostly he just swallows rainwater.  

    Defeated slightly, his shoulders slump and he gestures towards the rain cloud.  

    -Right right.  You are plagued by an environmental calamity.  You seek to know how such a thing could happen I would imagine?  I would think you would like to know what it is that you might be able to do to rid yourself of this deluge of torment?  Yes?  Do I have it about covered?

    Monty can only nod.  

    -You’ve been to medical professionals I assume?  Doctors? Both General Practicioners and specialists?  Psychiatrists?  

    Monty nods along to each.

    -No doubt you are at your wits end?  You’ve had enough and are ready to be given an answer that does imply that you are simply thinking negatively?  Something that fails to run along the lines of “Chin up Son” or “buck up there chap” or the Secret or some other bullshit?  Am I close?

    Monty nods more agressively, splattering the weather pattern charts on the wall with some actual weather patterns.  

    -Well my sodden friend, I think I may know just the thing.  I’ve been at this game a while now and if I recall correctly…

    Here he digs into a file cabinet behind his desk.  The drawers are filled to brimming with carelessly ordered papers, yet he begins to rifle through them as if he knows exactly where what he is seeking is.

    -…I think they’re might be something right here, oh, no, not that.  But it was around the same time so we should be…

    A bell sounds somewhere and a disembodied voice calls Mulaney back to the stage.  He launches himself away from the filing cabinet, sliding the length of his office on the wheels at the bottom of the chair.  He reaches out and shakes Monty’s soaking wet hand and still shaking the rain from his hand he heads for the door.

    -Please do come back tommorow.  I’m sure I’ll find something that will help you this evening.  I’m afraid they need me again and then I’m positively swamped for the rest of today.  However, come by tomorrow and with a little luck, we shall solve this snafu of yours.  

    He opens the door with a flourish and flings himself around it, reappearing briefly again to add:

    -And please, do come at a godly hour tommorow, people around here are trying to put on the news.  

    And like the Cheshire Cat of Alice’s adventures, he disappears so quickly that only his smile is left behind.

 

-------------

    Monty rolls through the television studio three more times that week before he gets another sit down with Mulaney.  He is put out each time by the weatherman’s soft- spoken assistant.  A short blonde woman, easily in her mid-thirties though likely still carded each time she buys a pack of smokes.  

    He can smell the cigarettes on her breath when she tells him that Mulaney is far to busy to see him, but to come back the next day.  

    The cloud was unusually quiet during the intermission between visits to Mulaney.  With the exception of a particularly unpleasant squall during dinner with his mother the previous evening, the cloud had barely made a sound.  Monty had even been able to sleep almost through the majority of the last couple of nights. 

    Though truth be told, it would be difficult to sleep on a soaking wet, saran-wrapped mattress during the best of times.  

    Mulaney stands behind his desk.  The room seemed to pulsate around him.  He hadn’t said a word since entering the office moments earlier.  The only sound to be heard above the muffled noise of televised newswork going on behind the door, was a faint rumbling from within the darkening cloud.  

    The weatherman sucks his teeth and takes a deep breath before sliding open the top desk drawer and pulling out a manilla folder.  It is thick and Monty can see the strain the folders contents is putting on its shape.  

    He drops the folder on the desk.  

    -There.  He says it with a finality, as if he has done all he can just by heaving the thick folder half a foot across the surface of his desk.  –That’s what I was looking for.  It was something I came across as a young meterologist traveling the Andes with nothing but a backpack of clothes and weather measuring equipment.  

    Monty imagines the stocky weatherman, clad head to foot in khaki, an old-timey explorers helmet covering his carefully maintained cuoife, a large traveling knapsack askew across his shoulders, his cargo shorts weighed down by supplies.  In his mind’s eye, the young Mulaney is bound tightly and up to his neck in a large black pot.  South American Aboriginals dance crude war dances and chant rhythmic war chants around the pot.  A small, wiry jet black man chops a carrot into the pot.  

    -…one of the great mysteries of my… Hello?  You seem to have glazed over and I was just getting to the best part.  Of course you glazed over, you’re not interested in my juvenile tales of danger and intrigue in the…Well it hardly matters I suppose.  In this folder are tales of three different men, all plagued by the same kind of meteorological event.  

    -So you’ve seen this before is what you’re saying?

    -Me?  Heaven’s no.  These case are all from the early part of the century.  Records are pretty scarce in those parts of the world, you see but I did manage to track down their fates.  It’s all there in the file. 

    -They lived?

    -Well, in a manner of speaking.  Two of the three were beset upon by snow and driven to suicide.  The snow didn’t kill them though, if that’s what you’re asking.

    -And the third?

    -No one knows.

    -No records?

    -well, sort of.  The man just disappeared.  He was of course plaguged by a localized, personal tornado.  It was thought at the time that he may have just been lifted away.

    -How does this help me exactly?

    Monty has the folder open in his lap now and is flipping through the pages of newsclippings, old photos, handwritten notes and such.

    -It doesn’t help you?

    -It’s interesting, I guess, but I don’t give a shit about who else may have suffered like this.  I need it to stop.  I can’t live my life like this.  YOU SAID YOU’D HELP ME?!?!  This isn’t help.  This is bullshit.  Useless.  POINTLESS.  BULLSHIT!

    He stands kicking the chair onto it’s back behind him.  He throws the folder against the wall, sending it’s contents flying in every direction.  Pictures and newsclippings fall to the ground at different speeds throughout the room.  

As if on cue, the cloud cracks with thunder.  Lightening arcs from within giving it the appearance of a firefly in a foggy jar and then it lets loose; and it is by any standard, a legendary storm.  

Monty is instantly soaked and the carpet begins to suck him down inside it.  His hands grip the desk and he leans in towards the weatherman; who evidently has never seen anything like this before, either in his travels of south America in his youth or at any time following. 

The contents of Mulaney’s desk, a motley crue of knick knacks, chotckes and papers strewn in no discernible order is cast in every which way as if gathered up in some invisible and giant hand and tossed like dice to the floor.  The papers rise and fall in the air like giant snowflakes, some soaked through and moving at a greater speed towards the floor than the ones that avoided most of the water and coast their way downwards, almost carelessly, peacefully.  The rest of it hits walls and everything in between.  Mulaney takes cover behind his chair, a muffled obscenity gobbled up by the wail of the storm.  

-You fucking blowhard.  You cocksucker.  You’ve wasted half my week with this bullshit.  This utter farce.  You’re a joke, asshole.  You’ve probably never even been to South America.  You’re a fraud.  

He snatches a newsclipping from the air and waves it towards Mulaney, who has poked his sizable noggin from behind the chairback.  

-This is National Enquirer shit.  You cut out some shitty tabloid articles and put them in a folder.  I can’t believe I thought you could help me.  

Monty lets out a guttaral roar from a place deep inside his diaghragm.  It’s volume and depth frightens him a little but the scream feels good, it feels right.  The tendons in his neck pulse.  The cloud responds in kind with thunder that drowns out the scream.  Lightning erupts in fiercer kind.  One in particular darts outwards in a great and dividing fork and sets fire to the corner of the desk.  

Monty leans on the desk again, only this time in exhaustion.  He slumps slightly and the cloud eases.  The rain peters out for a moment before ceasing altogether, the wind following suit quickly on its heels.  It lightens and sits, also spent, a half foot above Monty’s head, silent. 

Mulaney again peeks his head out, having dove for cover once more.  He breathes heavily, his eyes wide and unblinking; staring at the cloud.  Monty breathes hard across from him.  Neither man moves.

The brief calm is shattered again as the door to the office bursts open and two large, black security guards, looking darker than they are from the crisp white security shirts, burst into the room.  Each is struck still and silent by the disaster of the office and the state of the two men. Monty turns slowly to acknowledge them, the rest of the studio peering over each other to see inside and around the guards.

-The fuck?  One security guard.

-Mother of Christ.  The other.  

Mulaney gets slowly to his feet, eyes still wide and unmoving from Monty and the cloud.  He chooses his words carefully, with only the slightest stammer.

-Uh.  Everything’s just fine, gentlemen.  Yes, just fine.  I was only trying to help.  

-I was just leaving, actually.  Monty pushes his way past the two large men.  –City’s Most Trusted Weatherman My Fucking ASSHOLE!!

The cloud thunders its agreement.   

 

--------------

 

    The park is the same at night as it was during the day only more imposing.  The trees lurk around the edges.  The shadows are darker.  Monty sits on the same bench. There is a wad of gum stuck to the upper right corner.  That is new.  Monty had noticed it upon arriving.  

    The cloud hovered quietly.  It hadn’t made a noise since he had stormed out of the Channel 8 offices.  At one point he thought it might be humming, or purring the way a cat might.  

    He was still carrying the joint she had brought him around.  It was still a little damp from being in his pocket, which now smelled the same as the joint and had been starting to waft upwards.  

    He put the half smoked joint in between his lips and flicked the match to life.   It had taken a moment to catch but he inhaled it deeply.  It slid down smoothly and he could feel it immediately branching outwards through him, firing synapses spreading the smoke throughout him, warming his fingertips.  

    Leaning his head back against the bench he lets the smoke loose straight up into the cloud.  It seems to swirl harder around the cloud, as if becoming absorbed by it, becoming one with the cloud, another piece of it.  He laughed around the next pull wondering if the cloud’s rain would get you stoned.

    A homeless man shambles down the path,which cuts through the park.  He is wearing a life-preserver over a ratty jacket and pants tied around the waist by a folded length of newspaper.

    -Spare change mister?

    Monty shakes his head, hoping to not have to speak to this man.

    -Maybe a hoot on that there?  

    He points with a slight tremor at the joint.  

    -I don’t think so.

    The man seems about to reply, perhaps retort but instead he says nothing, in fact he seems to react in no way whatsoever.  Only when his full stop fades into a temporary pause does Monty exhale.  The homeless man cocks his head briefly, the motor behind his eyes beginning to whirr again, then he nods his head slightly and turns to leave.  

    -You’re clouds on crooked.  He says it loudly, over his shoulder and matter-of-factly.  –Thought you might like to know.

    

************

    Much like it had come, the cloud became to dissapate sometime while he slept.  One day he lay his relatively dry hair on his relatively dry pillow and quickly began to hum quietly, a soft snoring most of his girlfriends had found cute.  When he awoke the following morning, the cloud, as it had since it’s arrival, hovered mere inches above his head, only lighter, somehow fainter than it had been the night before.

    Now the cloud had many moods, which Monty had come to know quite well after the first few weeks.  As weeks turned into months he had become something of a savant, knowing not only what moods the cloud was in but he was also able to predict their arrivals.  Consequently, he was rarily caught unawares and was always prepared with an umbrella in case of squalls, a comb in case of wind, and even a few days recently, as the weather outside got colder a small dustpan he kept in his bag to sweep up any snow left in his wake.

    Only this morning was different.  No fuschia coloured hues indicating displeasure and an oncoming storm, perhaps hours or in one case, a full day later, but certain nonetheless.   There was no pink glow it reserved to follow up serious disturbances, something of a peace offering would have been how Monty described it.  The black, ominous shading, which preceded such storms differed only slightly from the dark, dark grey that occasionally indicated great wind but no rain.  

    This particular morning however, the cloud seemed to be a lighter shade of white.  The type of cloud you’d expect to drift across the backdrop of a local summer baseball game.  Only fainter and more translucent than one would expect.  

    As the days passed, it was possible to see through the cloud, first quite hazily, like trying to see into the distance of a dream.  Slowly it became fainter and fainter, though never ceasing it’s continous weather patterns.  

    Jude had noticed it first, that the rain produced by the slowly fading cloud seemed made of less; less weight to its landing, less wet to it’s substance.  

    As the cloud faded, so did the evidence of it’s existence.  In it’s last days, as if trying to rage against the dying of it’s own light, it stormed for close to a 24 hour period, and though it’s thunder was ferocious in nature, it was quite tame in volume.  

    All in all the cloud was present for 179 days and 178 nights.  It caused hundreds of dollars in property damage and when it was gone, and had been so for a couple of days, Monty found himself sitting alone again, in the park, smoking a small joint he had found quite fortuitously.  

    Since the cloud was no longer with him, he had begun cleaning up the mess it had made during it’s tenure.  There behind his nighttable, somehow spared from water damage perched on the lip of the baseboard, just above the soaking wet carpet, was a small, pristinely rolled spliff.

    Was this a movie, the camera would pull back and slowly rise up above Monty as he smoked his joint, relieved and celebrating his newfound liberation.  He would inhale and exhale deeply as the camera lifted into the air, our unseeing eye.  Monty would gaze into the distance, squinting slightly, maybe forlornly, trying to process his experience, to find some meaning in it.  Rising further up and away, a popular song, something eccentric or whimsical or both would swell under the picture and just as the camera reached the apex of the unseen crane carrying it up into the daytime sky, overcast and full of clouds and maybe a few sections of sun peeking through in dramatic streams, the credits would roll and after a few moments the audience would leave.  Hopefully they would discuss the meaning of the cloud and it’s presence in our protaganist’s life.  

    But, this is not a movie. There are no credits, no music (whimsical or otherwise), no crane and no camera.  There is just Monty, his joint and the homeless man who ambles out of the trees hitching up his newspaper belt, his dirty hand out asking for a hoot of the spliff.  

    Thunder cracks far off in the distance and Monty laughs quietly to himself while handing the last half of the joint to the man. 

    -Th’nk y’sir.

    Monty says nothing in reply, simply smiles and nods and begins to walk away.  The man squints at him, examining his face as he passes by.

    -I know you?  I do don’t I?  You used to have a cloud over your head didn’t you?

    Monty isn’t listening anymore.  

-I guess it done left ya then huh?  

The homeless man takes a few steps after him, pulling on the joint, then calling after him, shouting into the park, at Monty’s back and to no one in particular.

-That’s what they say after all, don’t they? Into every life a little rain must fall?

Monty turns at the street and disappears into the darkening night.  The homeless man kills the joint and flicks it onto the grass and mutters to himself.

-A little rain must fall.  Metophoric or otherwise.  

 

--end--