VI: The Weatherman

Singer and I had just finished scavenging the market and were starting to inventory our picks, when it started raining. Thanks to the amount of time it took us to go through the entire store, along with the limited light in the place already, it had grown much darker since the attack of the spaceman; a slight rainstorm didn't help the light, and we had to squint at our wares via candlelight.

Contrary to stories you may have heard or read, rain is not always a sign of bad things to come. It's definitely not a device used in my story, so let's get that out of the way. Rain is just a weather condition, and the reason why I bring it up is because that's what the weather was like on the night I met Singer. Bad things can happen in broad daylight, just as much as they can happen when it's "dark and stormy"; ask Singer: when he found Promise, he could distinctly hear birds chirping outside, and when he finally made his way out of that school, the sun was blindingly bright.

"It was like the day was laughing in my face," he had said while telling his story. “And it hurt.”

And now here we were, surrounded by lifeless corpses, some having stayed down the first time while the rest needed further convincing that they were down for the count. One would think the aroma in the market would have smelled putrid; however, thanks to the change in the weather and a few broken windows, a nice breeze had pushed through, clearing the area of the horrendous smell. It didn't necessarily get rid of it, but the smells became barely tolerable.

Which was good enough for us.

Singer, having set all the items from his collection into the center of our makeshift pile, tossed his bag to the side and sat down across from me. "So," he said, clapping his hands on his knees, "a bit anal, are we?"

I looked up from the list I had been making, of which he had been referring. When I looked at the expression on his face, it wasn’t one of mockery, at least not in a rude sense; no, what presided on his face at the moment was that of curiosity. And lots of it.

Clearing my throat, I said, “Not necessarily. Old habits are hard to kick, I guess.”

“Old habits, eh?” he said, leaning forward and getting into a comfortable position on the store’s tiled floor. “Were you a file clerk or something?”

I shook my head. “Not so prestigious, by the old society’s standards.”

From there, I told him about working at the comic book shop. About what it was like to work in a place where the patrons seemed to accept alternate worlds and how to live in them. About the irony of how such discussions turned to become incredibly fruitful when the real world became an alternate one. About viable strategies when dealing with opposition and survival, thanks to heroes in tights and body armor.

And about keeping all of that and more in order.

“Things were just simpler when things were in order,” I said as I looked back down at the list, writing down the last few items. I mentally noted that Singer’s Red Vines had not been added to the inventory; but I wasn’t going to cry foul on one package of red licorice.

Singer snorted. “That, my friend, sounds like the rally cry of an anal person, to me.”

I shook my head, grinning as I did, and put the final touches to the list. It wasn’t very long, but it was longer than what it had been at the beginning; Singer included. I put the list and the other utensils I had used for it back into my bag.

Once the bag was zipped up and placed back behind me, I looked out the front windows. The sky grew increasingly darker, the rain growing heavier by the minute. Its patter against the roof of the market was soothing to my ears, and I closed my eyes; I breathed in and my heart lightened slightly as the smell of fresh rain hit my senses.

It was a moment I needed, and before I opened my eyes to face what was in front of me and plan for the days ahead, I took one more moment. In that moment, I said a silent “thank you”. For moments like these, I feel, because they are so few and far between, you almost have to.

Letting out the breath, I opened my eyes and turned back toward Singer. He was no longer looking at me with curiosity; in fact, even though the expression changed immediately after I looked toward him, I could swear that what I saw on his face was envy. I wondered how many moments, like the one I’d just had, he had allowed himself after the death of his daughter. By the weary look in his eyes and the hunch in his shoulders, the answer was simple: not a lot, if any.

The look on Singer’s face now conveyed a kind of anticipation, which he partnered with saying, “So, what do you think we should do now?”

I caught it immediately. “We?”

“Sure,” he said, nodding toward the pile of goods on the floor between us. “We could either fight over who should get what, thereby making your list a bit moot. Or we could work together for a while, see if we can find others who might need our saving and our scavenging expertise.”

“I don’t know…”

Singer lifted his hands from his knees, holding them up in a conciliatory manner: hands up, palms facing toward me. “Okay, okay. I won’t push you,” he said, keeping his hands in the air in front of him. “But how about this? You think about it during the time it takes for the rain to stop, and if you decide you’d like to go it alone, I’ll let you have first pick of what you take with you.”

I watched as his left hand made a wide presentation of the pile on the floor; after the presentation, he lowered the hand and proceeded to offer me his right one. “Deal?”

Giving it a second’s worth of thought, I took the proffered hand, giving it a firm squeeze and a grand shake. “Deal.”

As it turned out, the rain lasted another half an hour before dissipating. Rain, though hard on the roof and at the windows at times, was all it ended up being; nothing flashed, nothing rumbled in the overhead distance. Had I known at the time, I would have said another silent “thank you” that it hadn’t been a full-on thunderstorm. Unfortunately, since I had yet to experience a full-on thunderstorm since the Day Everything Changed, the knowledge of what it would entail had not yet been made available to me.

Don’t worry: we’ll get to that later. For now, as Singer and I watched the last bits of precipitation die off, leaving a damp warmth in the area, I made my decision.

And so, with everything packed between us in our bags, Singer and I made our way out of Murray’s Mart, and into the wet night.