Maybe it’s raining inside his head.

Metro’s been predicting rain 16 days in a row, but there hasn’t been a cloud in sight.

SAM METRO’S WEATHER BY LAURA ROBERTS 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 16

I’ve been waiting for it to rain for the past 16 days. I mean, I’ve always trusted my weatherman, Sam Metro, but with his recent spate of erroneous forecasting, I’m beginning to have my doubts. Being a creature of most strict habit, however, there’s no way you’ll ever catch me switching stations behind his back. Call it loyalty, call it pride, call it mulish stubbornness, but I’ve picked my horse and I’m sticking to him till he’s shipped off to the glue factory.

Metro’s been predicting rain 16 days in a row, although there hasn’t been a cloud in sight for at least the past 12. I’m starting to question his meteorological authority, but nevertheless I faithfully carry my umbrella to work every day in anticipation. I’ve done this little dance for more than two weeks, enduring the scoffs of strangers and co-workers alike as they glance up at the sky, observe its Pacific-blue tranquility and arch their eyebrows at me, as if to ask—“What’s with the bumbershoot, guy?” My co-worker, Bob, supplies the end of my thought as he hustles to keep pace with me. We’ve both surfaced from the same subway station, and despite the newspaper under my nose, he seems determined to chat.

“The forecast said rain, and I was a Boy Scout,” I shrug.

“Always be prepared?”

“Yup. Hey, I’m just gonna grab a coffee. I’ll see you at the office.” I duck into a café before Bob can even say “See you there!” He’s been asking about the umbrella all week, as if expecting a different answer every time. There’s no deeper meaning here! I want to shout at him. It’s just a fucking umbrella! But what’s the use?

The café is crowded with pre-work java junkies, muscling for space. They all need their caffeine fix, preferably mixed in with some steamed milk, hold the foam, and two packets of Splenda, please, not real sugar, good god, are you trying to rot me from the inside out?! They’re all fiending for it hardcore. Then there’s me, with my hand in my pocket and a bored expression, wanting it black like night, like coal, like the devilish Other that mocks each of us with his discomfiting stare. I mentioned this once to the barista, and she gave me the very look I was talking about, dead with incomprehension.

Being surrounded by philosophy majors who’ve never read Sartre has got to be some kind of cosmic joke. The irony of “hell is other people”, however, just isn’t funny when you realize you’re 45 years old and have entirely wasted your youth.

I could still fit right in with these anti-establishment dopes if I got myself a scraggly little goatee and started growing my hair long enough to strategically muss it. My mane may be thinning, but it’s not at the comb-over stage just yet. I should grow it out. But then again, why bother? I’m just another old man to them, too old to even change professions and start over. I’m stuck. And so what? I’m no rebel, with or without a cause. I’m just another idiot who should’ve come up with a dream before it was too damn late.

I love the smell of failure in the morning.

When I finally reach the front of the café’s line, I order a double espresso from the apple-cheeked youngster at the register. She yells to the barista, who yells back to her, some kind of modern-day call and response. “That’ll be $4.25,” she says, and I wonder, like I do every day, why I keep coming to this place. It’s highway robbery, is what it is. I think that may even be the name of the place, but it’s on my way to work. It’s easy, a no-brainer, right in my slingshot trajectory from home to subway to work and back again. Who am I to question these things?

I slide on down the counter to the end marked “pick up” and wait for the barista to place my drink on the zinc countertop. When he finally does, announcing “double espresso” with the slightest hint of an Australian accent, I pick it up and add just a splash of whiskey from the flask in my coat pocket. See, the way I figure it, it’s not really drinking before noon if you use less than an ounce of alcohol. But even if this does make me an alcoholic, what difference does it make? It’s not like anyone will ever know, will ever call me out. I’m just a cog in the machine, and if any of the higher-ups ever dared to acknowledge my existence on a personal level, I’d probably shit myself. I only exist to make them rich, not to have ideas, share small-talk, or otherwise interact with them on any level.

“Life’s a bitch and then you die,” I say, raising my cup to the barista in a fucked-up toast. He gives me a look, like he’s more than halfway to dialing “9” and then “11”, so I just gulp the shots down, tip the dude and leave.

Back on the street again, I squint up at the sky. Its azure blue is perfection, completely devoid of clouds. I don’t claim to know how Metro can be so blind to this spate of heavenly weather, but I’ll keep carrying my umbrella to work every day, just in case. Maybe the dude’s in London on a particularly bad acid trip. I mean, maybe it’s raining inside his head. Who knows what makes a man lose his mind and start predicting rain in the middle of beach volleyball season? I certainly don’t.