Foul and Fair A Day

The gray clouds gathered in the sky looking like ash streaking across a vast blue canvas of light. It looked like rain was coming around in the usual way. The billows crawled against the sky slowly filling the void above the planet. There was nothing peculiar about the weather until the clouds showed that they seemed to be in a hurry. They sky seemed to shimmer a dull purple as if night struggled to make its presence known before its appropriate time. As if an upside-down ocean, the calm grays and cool silvers of the cumulus clouds waved in a silent violence, its rippling becoming more and more apparent with each passing moment.

Gentle breezes that swept the leaves into the gutters became stiff winds that firmly thrashed against the sides of houses. Was it a tornado? Impossible. A hurricane? Not likely. There were intricate patterns weaving itself into the very fabric of the atmosphere. No one was quite sure if this was an omen of iniquity or a prophecy of fortune. Walks around the block had halted. Drivers stopped, making the highway a glorified parking lot. Pedestrians froze mid stride like statues that turned their gaze to the swiftly changing skies. Faces emerged on window panes, the eyes turning skyward.

A young boy sat quietly, drinking his chocolate milk through a long plastic straw. His eyes were glued to the phenomena but his mind melded with the creamy goodness that filled the glass in front of him. There was no need to look at how much was left. It was almost as if he could feel how much he had left in the glass which his fingers gently touched. The condensation collected in the whorls of his fingertips and dripped alongside the glass. It formed a ring of water on the window pane that would earn a scolding from his mother. The boy picked up the glass and wiped the ring of moisture from where he laid the chocolate drink. He ignored the ring of chocolate milk that dripped from his chin. Surely, his mother would not scold him for that. The boy flicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and ran it alongside the sides of his cheek and savored every drop of his sweet drink.

In an instant, the air flashed blue and purple and white with the veins of electricity running from the center of the massive ripple. But the masses paid no special attention to the lightning. It spurred them back into movement and summoned the sheets of water from the rain clouds. The feet that once were planted into the ground scurried back onto their merry own ways, towards their individual destinies, away from the rattling rain. The sky had lit on fire, a cool fire that burned with clouds and water and thunder-less lightning. For a few seconds, the world had ceased to rotate on its axis to observe the foul and fair happenings over a small portion on the enormous globe and just as quickly, it was business as usual. Nobody had realized that there was no freak occurrence that caused the happenings in the sky other than the vivid imaginings of a small boy who enjoyed chocolate milk.