The Weatherman

Part 4

     The Weatherman followed the tall man to work one morning. With him he brought his ugliest, most hateful band of thunderclouds. They were huge and black, growling angrily as they emptied their endless torrents of murky water upon the tall man during his commute.

     As the tall man approached the great grey block of concrete that he called "the office", the rain was still hammering down on his head. A few blocks behind, the tall man had attempted, in vain, to cover his head with a newspaper, but before long, it had turned to mush and simply dripped even more water, that had become slate-blue with ink, onto his ever-so-slightly balding crown.

     When the tall man reached the grubby glass revolving door, he was drenched to the bone. His clothes were full of so much water that they dripped on the office building's marble floor like little versions of the angry clouds outside, creating small floods everywhere the tall man went.

     The rain fell unendingly for the rest of the day. If anything, it grew heavier each time the clock sluggishly pushed its arm further into the day.

     The tall man's clothes were already stuck fast to his increasingly weary body, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not dry them. He became colder and colder each time he put pen to paper, as the water in his clothes seeped into his skin. After a few hours, he began to cough and shiver. He couldn't concentrate. He couldn't write. He couldn't think straight. Moving closer to the radiator, he felt no warmth.

     The shivering the tall man felt became uncontrollable. His body could no longer focus properly, as sickness wrapped its slippery tendrils around him. Quickly, he grasped for his coat, stumbling as he stood to put it on. He couldn't stay any longer. He was sick. He needed to go home.

     The tall man's vision blurred as he fumbled for the button inside the elevator. Nothing was focused. He steadied himself against the rear wall as he plummeted towards the ground floor. The falling feeling of the elevator made him feel ill. He tried not to vomit.

     The elevator stopped. The door opened. Everything began spinning. The tall man fell forwards when he tried to walk. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

     The Weatherman stood over him, his matted grey hair dripping on the polished floor. Between the grease-tangled strands, his cold, red eyes stared. Anyone who could have seen him would have witnessed a small smile growing from the corner of the Weatherman's crooked and wrinkled old mouth.

     He was done.