FICTION

Cloudy Skies Ahead    -     Jane Hudson                                  

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A Tired and Lazy God
by Charlene Anderson

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When the rains started, most people were too focused on the pandemic to pay much attention. But as weeks went by and what had been only above average rainfall became heavy and finally so widespread that most of the earth was affected, people couldn’t avoid noticing. When the relentless downpours created mudslides, washed out roads and flooded rivers, news of the rain and its destruction started to crush that of Covid-19.

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RAIN ! - Jane Hudson

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​Fairly quickly it became apparent that it wasn’t only the rains and floods causing the decline in Covid-19 news coverage, but that the virus itself was rapidly subsiding. That was a shock, of course, and caused speculation that there might be a connection between the drop in infections and the increase in rain. But nobody could come up with any plausible ideas and soon interest in that question began to fade. When trees are sliding down hills, crops are being destroyed and deserts are being transformed into lakes, even a pandemic and conjectures about it begin to wash away.
 
Naturally, as the rains ramped up, The National Oceanic and Aeronautics Administration (NOAA) and other weather agencies began working triple time trying to figure out what was going on. There were many ideas, but probably the most promising hypothesis was that, since global warming has caused more and more water to evaporate from the 70% of the earth’s surface that is covered by water, this already speeded-up process had super-accelerated and caused the atmosphere to be super-saturated with moisture. Thus more rain. But after months of study, no evidence of that had been found, and nobody came up with a better explanation either.
 
And the rain continued to fall.

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1

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One especially soggy morning in late June, Margaret Atwater, Director of NOAA, contacted her friend and colleague, Claire Albert. “I have a favor to ask,” she said after a few preliminaries. “I’d like you to chair a new task force or investigative group to look into this weather debacle.”
 
Claire looked pale and strained, her forehead knotting up. She tossed her long blonde hair back over her shoulder and said, “Thanks, Margaret. But—but why me? You have the biggest experts on this already.” She cleared her throat. “And I’m not ready to go back to work yet anyway and won’t be much help to you as I am.” Claire had been on Compassionate Leave from the Atmospheric Science Department at Colorado State University since her husband Dan Wallace had died of Covid-19 three months earlier.
 
Margaret shook her head and tapped her finger on the keyboard. “Claire, I’m really sorry about Dan,” she said. “And I’d never consider asking if we weren’t so desperate.”
 
Claire squinted at Margaret. “Thanks,” she said, “and I am doing somewhat better. But—”
 
Afraid she’d lose Claire before she had a chance to fully explain, Margaret interrupted, “—As you know, all those weather experts haven’t gotten very far. We are on it. But I’ve talked to Sam Mabawe and Mark Loren as well as Sarah Muller, and they all agree that we need to think out of the box, hash things through, do whatever we can imagine or we’ll—” She broke off—"—Well, if this keeps up, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
 
Claire sat up straighter. “So, why don’t you ask one of them to put together and lead the task force,” she said, “or even all of them?”
 
Margaret looked into Claire’s eyes. “They all did say they are in,” she said, “but they also all agree that you’re the one to lead it.”
 
Claire blinked. “Why?”
 
“For lots of reasons. But the consensus was that it’s because of your experience on climate change and tropical cyclones.” Margaret paused, then added with a crooked grin, “And you have a way of looking at things a little differently too, a little more . . . slant.” She cleared her throat. “I hesitate to bring it up, but there was that idea you looked into a couple of years ago about building a wall around the glaciers to hold them in and keep the warm water out.” She laughed.

“You just had to remind me of that, didn’t you, Margaret?” She paused. “And yet, I still think there might be something to that, as far-fetched as it might sound.”

“You see.” Margaret laughed again. “That’s just what I’m talking about. And, I repeat, Mark, Sarah and Sam all said it should be you.”
 
They talked some more, worried through it together, and finally Claire said, “Okay, I’ll try one virtual meeting.”
 
Margaret shook her head. “I think it should be in person.”
 
“What? With all the problems they’re having at airports? And, did you know that there have been three plane crashes in the last two weeks?”
 
“Together, in person, people are more creative—come up with things they don’t on the virtual screen.” Claire tried to object but Margaret said, “And it’s all arranged. Sarah set up the meeting in Geneva. She’s taking care of transportation, hotels, everything. All you need to do is show up.”​

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2

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It was overcast though not raining as the eight weather-watchers assembled in the conference room. Naturally, they’d all noticed the lack of precipitation that morning, and a few had fleetingly thought that this might be a good sign, but with the countless ups and downs over the past few months, none of them believed that this was anything but a brief respite.
 
The room was rectangular and the gleaming mahogany table in the center was just the right size. The only slightly off-key thing about the room was the presence of the wall-to-wall window at the far end. Normally, the view of trees and mountains in the distance would have been reposeful. But now, as they took their seats and glanced out the window, all they could think about was when the rain would start again.
 
After introductions, Claire thanked them for coming and explained that Margaret Atwater wanted them to throw ideas around and schmooze, and hopefully come up with something to look into. Then she suggested they go around the table and share what they’d been working on. As they did, though there were several interesting projects, there was little that hadn’t been investigated elsewhere.
 
Then they got to Sam Mabawe of the Kenya Meteorological Department. “I don’t have much yet,” he said, frowning. “But a few days ago, I noticed a few pockets or areas, some hundreds and others only dozens of miles across, which as far as I can tell, have accumulated little or no rain in the last several months. As you know, I’ve done some work on the Dry Valleys in Antarctica where it never rains and that’s probably why I noticed this.” He spread his hands out. “I don’t know what to make of that, but since our task here is to note anything unusual, I wanted to mention it. I’m going to the Sahara on Monday to check out the one there.” He paused. “I’ve located another one near Brussels and a couple in South America.” He pushed up his dark glasses. “And I’m still looking.”
 
They discussed it. Jose Berrera from Brazil agreed to check out the one in his country, and Alaina Matier from France said she would go to Brussels and see what she could discover there.
 
As they talked, the rain started. At first, it was only a mist fluffing against the window. Then the wind increased and the mist started spitting rat-a-tat against the pane. Heavy clouds roiled up and filled the sky. Rain sprayed and sloshed against the glass.
 
Somebody hissed, “Oh, my God.” But they’d all seen far worse. So, with a little shuffling and a few glances at the now dark window, they went back to work.
 
The wind revved up some more. The window rattled. A huge branch or small tree smashed against the building with a crashing sound, and as it fell away, a puff of air brushed through the room. Papers ruffled up on the table.
 
Mark Loren, from the Met Office in the UK, jumped up. Tall and with a shock of dark hair and a brooding face, he more resembled a romantic poet than a detached scientist. “I didn’t want to come,” he declared. “We should have done this virtually. It’s just not safe.” He glared at the window.
 
“But we can get farther, be more innovative meeting face to face.” Sam furrowed his dark brow and said. “Why don’t you sit back down, Mark, so we can continue.”
 
“No. I’m leaving,” Mark said. “I’ll be in touch virtually.” He grabbed his laptop and briefcase and headed for the door.
 
Sarah Muller giggled nervously. “That window won’t break, Mark,” she said. “At least, they assured me it won’t.”
 
There was a gust of wind and the window shuddered. More air skirted across the table.

“I wish you’d reconsider, Mark,” Claire said.
 
Mark shook his head and opened the door. “Sorry, Claire. I appreciate your inviting me. But we’ll do better back in our own bailiwicks.”
 
Claire opened her mouth to say something. The lights flickered, came back on, flickered again and went out. A sheet of paper fluttered off the table and sank to the floor.
 
“I’m so sorry about this,” Sarah waved her hand limply around.

“I guess we have no choice,” Claire said. “Let’s adjourn until Monday on Zoom.”
 
They silently left the room.

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3

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Claire’s head bobbed against the shuttered plane window. The cabin was darkened and the plane nearly empty, so the only distraction inside the plane was from the background hum of the engines. Claire wanted to sleep and shut out the harsh realities all around her, but though the plane’s interior was restful, the plane itself dipped and bounced in the continuing storm. Finally, she gave up on dozing and leaned back in the seat, eyes closed. She didn’t want to think about the meeting that had just ended, but of course she did, not so much the content of it, but of the irony that eight topnotch scientists couldn’t come up with one viable solution and were finally driven away by the very thing they were studying. It seemed a microcosm in the macrocosm of the relentless storms and demonstrated just how ignorant they still were.
 
Then there was the virus. It too remained a strange incomprehensible phenomenon, how and why it started and especially the way it ended. As a scientist, she couldn’t imagine that the rains could have contributed to the virus fading away. Still, the juxtaposition couldn’t be denied. Another unexplained situation. Another irony.
 
She thought of Dan and tears filled her eyes. How tragic that he’d contracted Covid-19 at such a relatively young age, 49, the same age as Claire, and when it was all but gone, and been among the last to die from it. To her personally, that was the saddest irony of all.
 
She sat up and stared around the empty cabin. But there was no one and no answer there either. When Dan died, her scientist-self had taken a backseat to her personal one, and she sought meaning of whatever kind and let science temporarily be damned. She continued to struggle to right things, to regain objectivity and understanding over emotion. But it was hard in this topsy-turvy world.
 
At the Denver airport, she hailed a taxi. The driver, a young Middle Eastern man, was wearing a mask. Seeing that, Claire blinked—masks hadn’t been in use for some time now. “Just in case,” the man said, eyes dancing. “In case the plague comes wandering back again.”
 
Claire laughed a brittle laugh. “I know what you mean,” she said. “You never know these days what’s going to happen next.”
 
Margaret called just as Claire was walking in her door. “I talked to Mark, Sarah and Sam,” Margaret said. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out so well, Claire.” She paused. “Mark says to tell you he’s sorry for his ‘oafish behavior’ and that he’s still onboard virtually, at least, and he felt you did make some progress.”
 
Claire sank into her chair beside her desk. “He did? Well, I’m not so sure. I think he’s being kind because he feels a little guilty.”
 
Margaret didn’t say anything for a minute. “Sarah and Sam said so too,” she finally said. “Claire, I know this is particularly tough for you and I appreciate your doing it anyway. And I know we’re nowhere near where we want and need to be. But we have no choice but to keep pushing.” She paused. “I know you’re wiped out now. So how about we talk again tomorrow so you can fill me in.”​

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4

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“Margaret thought your idea was promising,” Claire told Sam when they Zoomed the next afternoon after she’d finished talking to Margaret again.
 
“But you don’t?” He squinted at her.
 
She jumped. “No, it’s not that, Sam, it’s just that I think it’s kind of . . . thin.”
 
He nodded sharply. “Granted. It’s very thin and might get us nowhere. But we need to follow any lead we have.”
 
She nodded too. “Yes, of course.”
 
“And that’s one reason I wanted to talk to you. I’ve found several more of those odd meteorological pockets, including one about 50 miles from Denver.”
 
“Really!”
 
“Yes, in the Foothills of your Rockies.”
 
Claire rustled around in her chair, mildly interested now that it was so close to home. “Okay, I’ll check it out.”
 
“Good,” he said. “And I suggest that you go up there and take a look.”
 
Claire’s eyes jumped. “Go there? But it’s tough driving on these rutted-out roads. And—”
 
He raised a long bony finger. “I think it’s something we should investigate—the terrain, cloud patterns, how much it has rained there and so on.” He paused. “As I told you, I’m going to the Sahara tomorrow and Jose and Alaina are looking at the ones in Brazil and Belgium.”
 
They discussed it and Claire finally, half-heartedly, agreed. She was ready to get off, when he said, “I think you need a little story to lift your spirits.” There was an odd twinkle in his eye.
 
She gave him a look. “A story? What kind of story?”
 
“A tale about this calamity we’re facing” he said. “A tale about God, recounted to me just last week by my own dear mother. It might bring enlightenment, even levity.”
 
“Okay,” she said, surprised, and unsure what to think. “Okay, what does your mother . . . say?”
 
“My mother raised five kids, mostly alone, while my dad worked on the railroad,” he said. “So, she spent a lot of her time alone making up and telling us stories.” He paused. “And they were good stories, not nursery rhymes, but tales with real substance.” He waved his arm. “And just so you know, though this story is about God, she isn’t particularly religious.”

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5

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He sat back in his chair. “According to Mom, God sent Covid-19 to the world, to humans, not as a punishment but because, as a race, we’d become complacent and weren’t doing what we are here to do.” He smiled. “So, to wake us up and get us going, he sent the Covid ‘plague’ so we would have no choice but to get busy and figure out how to cure it.”
 
“Really!”
 
“Yeah. But then a considerable amount of time went by and God noticed that what was supposed to be the greatest and most innovative country on earth did an abominable job of stopping, let alone curing that disease. So, He took pity and sent the rains to quash the Covid-dust and end it.”
 
Claire squinted into the screen. “I don’t see—”
 
“—But that didn’t work either,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “In fact, soon the entire planet was drowning and with no end to the rains in sight.”
 
He stopped. Claire waited. She waited some more. “So, what does your mother say God did then?” she asked, with slight amusement but also a strange nervousness. “Did God save us again? Did He let us perish?”
 
Sam shook his head and opened his hands out. “Mom said that, at that point, God got tired. So He got into bed, yawned, turned over and declared in His unique, Godlike way, ‘I’ve done enough. And I’m tired too. So, from now on, folks, you’ll have to fend for yourselves. In other words, from here on out, the rest is up to you.’”
 
 
 
The next morning, Claire pilfered her Stevenson Screen of barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, anemometer and several other devices, jumped in Dan’s jeep Wrangler, and splashed her way out of town. Dan had been a structural engineer and used the jeep to navigate tough places and Claire figured it would get her over some rough spots too. She also determined that, if the going got too bad, jeep or not, she’d turn around and head back home.
 
At first, it wasn’t too bad. There was a lot of rain and standing water. But though there were some ruts, the terrain was fairly flat, so there were no landslides or complete washouts. As she drove fairly quickly, but carefully, along she kept thinking about that odd story Sam had told her. The idea of a god who felt He’d worked enough and decided it was time for His creations to do some work so He could rest, was certainly startling. Beyond that, she had no idea what to make of it.
 
Once she got into the Foothills, the driving became a challenge. There was a lot of water and debris on the road and a couple of times she had to stop and remove it. In one place, the road was completely washed out and a small stream was coursing down across it.
 
Even with the GPS, Claire missed a turn and had to turn around. But finally, she looked up a hill and saw an area of lighter sky that she figured had to be the rain-free zone. The road skirted around that hill rather than going all the way to the top, so she found a turnoff, parked and started hoofing her way up. It was raining hard and, clutching her fishing tackle weather kit, she was glad she hadn’t brought even more instruments that she would have to drag up there. ​

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6

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gShe took a step and went from drenching rain to completely dry. She took another and found herself on top of a flat mesa. She stumbled forward, dropped the kit and slipped down on the slippery stones. Righting herself, she looked up and saw directly overhead an almost perfectly circular opening in the clouds, and in it a cloudless sky. It had been so long since she’d seen clear blue sky, that she just stared at it. She dropped her eyes and stood listening to the quiet of no-rain, absorbing the warmth of the sun, feeling a strange sense of silence and well-being. Then all that shivered away and she reminded herself why she was there.
 
That mesa was about 50 feet in diameter and covered with smooth, uneven rocks. Claire walked around, inspecting it and taking measurements. But when she was finished, she was mostly frustrated. Nothing had read out as unusual. The area appeared just as any semi-arid area under normal circumstances would.
 
Finally, with a frown, she gave it up and returned to the edge, ready to go back down. Then, glancing down at her feet, she noticed that, unlike on the rocky surface of the mesa, which had almost no plant growth, there were a few dry, brown weeds. Digging down into the soil, she found that it was dry several inches down. “It hasn’t rained here in a long time,” she mumbled to herself, “a very long time.”
 
 
 
By the time Claire got home, it was too late to contact Sam in Kenya. But she didn’t have much to tell him anyway. No measurements were unusual. There was that extreme dryness and the intense silence, but she couldn’t make much out of either one. She spent the evening reviewing her data and trying to come up with a hypothesis, ideas, anything, but nothing surfaced, so finally she gave up and went to bed.
 
She slept fitfully, tossing and turning, a tangle of dream images coursing through her mind. A group of unmasked, laughing people choking out a yellow Covid-cloud. Trees and buildings cascading down a hill under torrential rains. A bored and yawning god, shaking His head and turning away.
 
Finally, she fell into a deeper sleep:
 
A meteor crashed into the Gulf, generating a tremendous dust cloud and instantly obliterating the dinosaurs.
 
A small mammal hiding in a burrow miraculously escaped destruction. It shook its head and laughed.

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7

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Later that morning, in the kitchen, over coffee, she sat at the table staring out at the rain. She felt increasingly frustrated that she couldn’t come up with even a semi-plausible explanation for the weird events and their unlikely sequence, and especially for this latest twist of areas where it wasn’t raining at all.​

She shuffled around in the chair. She didn’t want Sam’s mother’s story to be true in any way, even as myth or allegory. The notion of a sleepy, lazy and, in her dream, also seemingly uncaring god, was unsettling. In non-mythical terms, it seemed to imply that bad-chance or chaos was in charge and science might never find a solution to this dilemma.
 
Claire got up and stood by the window. Yet she couldn’t believe chaos would prevail. Science had proven itself too thoroughly to even consider that. Using scientific methods, weather patterns had been categorized and understood, diseases had been studied and cured, and physicists had investigated the makeup of the physical and not-so-physical world and found pattern and even harmony there.
 
Suddenly, it hit her and she laughed: Substituting “Nature” for “God” in Sam’s mother’s tale, it almost made some sense.
 
Nature created the universe and everything in it.
 
Nature shot that meteor into the Gulf, snuffing out the dinosaurs in order, using the tenets of the survival of the fittest, to foster creatures that had more promise for evolving into something with more abilities and greater consciousness.
 
Nature, in order to foster evolution, ‘grew tired’—or appeared to—in order to force those creatures to get off their butts and start doing something for themselves.
 
Nature. Evolution. God.
 
 
During the next two weeks, the rains continued and those pockets stayed dry. Flooding and destruction increased. Airports and roads were closed. Concern grew about the food supply and even about how long it would be, at the current precipitation rates, until the sea level began to significantly rise. During that time, Claire and her colleagues continued to meet virtually and work separately, but at the end of that two-week period, they hadn’t come up with much.
 
One morning in late July, Claire woke to silence. That had happened several times over that rainy time, of course. So, still lost in sleep, when she slowly became aware of the quietness, she sighed and slipped away again. But as she woke a little more, she sensed, or maybe it was her ears that heard that something was different. She sat up, listened. Still no sound. She felt the silence too suddenly and, recalling the quietness on that mesa, knew that, in some strange way, this silence was the same.​

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8

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She got up and looked out the window. The sky was filled with clouds. The trees, grass and houses were spread across with a sheet of water. So, it had rained in the night. It had even rained hard. But it wasn’t raining now. She looked up again and noticed that the clouds were thinning and were mostly cumulous which almost never harbored rain.
 
She picked up the remote and switched the TV on. “We’ve been receiving reports from all around the world that for the last few hours, that is, from precisely 5:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, there has been no rain falling anywhere on earth.”
 
“What?”
 
Claire reached for the phone. It rang before she could pick it up. “Have you heard the news?” Sam said.
 
“I just found out. Does anybody know anything? What have you heard?”
 
“Well, one thing I know that they got wrong in the news broadcasts is that there is still some rain falling.”
 
“What? Where? What do you mean?”
 
He chuckled. “What I mean is that, although the rain has apparently ceased everywhere else in the world, now it is raining in all the pocket-zones.”
 
“Oh, my God.” She sank into a chair, took that in. “So, so, there’s been a . . . switcheroo.”
 
He laughed again. “That’s a good way to put it. The Great Switcheroo.”
 
They talked for awhile, then Sam said, “I’m leaving right after we get off. I guess you know where to.”
 
“To the Sahara.” Claire laughed. It came out more a choke. “And I’ll head up that hill again too. There’s got to be something that can help us get a handle on this latest weirdness.”​

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9

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The drive was easier this time. No rain smashing against the roof. No puddles to skirt around or truck on through. But after several additional weeks of rain, the roads were in worse shape and there were times when Claire wasn’t sure she’d make it. When she did, she sighed, slammed the jeep door shut and trudged that last leg up. Stepping across that invisible line close to the top, she instantly went from dry to torrential.
 
She got right to work, but like the first time, found nothing notable. The one remarkable thing was that what used to be a roughly circular area without clouds was now the only part of the sky that swirled with them, while all around it, the sky was cloudless.
 
She slipped and slid around on the smooth and now also wet rock ledge. She finished up fairly quickly and was ready to get out of there, but as she turned to start back down, an image of the yawning God flashed through her mind. She spun around and stood still as the rain cascaded off her.
 
“If I were God,” she raised her hand and called into the maelstrom, “I wouldn’t stand outside the natural world and, like some two-bit magician, wave a wand to change things. I’d be a Scientist-God and work within it. I’d develop creatures too who were capable of learning and evolving.” She raised her hand, laughing, water flooding her eyes. “Then when I thought they were ready and, considering that after all the creating I’d been doing, I was getting tired too, I’d push them into taking more responsibility for their own damned destiny.”
 
 
 
A week later, the eight scientists, along with Margaret Atwater, met in person, again in Geneva. “Welcome everybody,” Sarah Muller said. “I hope you don’t mind that I booked the same room.” She shook her head. “For one thing, it was available. For another, I thought we might actually enjoy the view this time.”
 
There was a rustle of laughter and several heads turned toward the window. Outside there was brilliant sunshine and, though the gardens were extraordinarily verdant, there were no puddles or impromptu waterfalls pushing down the hills.
 
Claire said, “Thanks for arranging the meeting, Sarah. And thanks to everybody, as well as Margaret, for coming.” She summarized the little they’d learned in the last few weeks. Then, since that wasn’t very satisfying, for comic relief, she described herself slipping and spinning around on top of that mesa in the rain. “All in the name of science.”
 
A few people chuckled and Margaret laughed.​

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10

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​Claire looked around the room. Most of them appeared attentive, relaxed even, but underneath she sensed deep strain. She hadn’t planned to say any more, but seeing that, she changed her mind. “You need to wake up,” she quietly said.
 
Sam blinked. Mark looked slightly shocked. “What?” Alaina and Max Tillerson said at once.
 
Claire shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not chiding or criticizing you. It’s hard to admit this, but on that hill in the driving rain, I think I woke up a little. It’s been ‘cooking’ for some time.” She tapped her forehead, then glanced at Sam. “And part of my ‘awakening’ came about because of a story Sam’s mother told him and he passed on to me.”
 
Everybody looked at Sam.
 
Claire pushed back from the table. “Sam can fill you in on that story later,” she said. “But right now, I want to tell you my story, and I hope it might help you.”
 
A few people shook their heads and others smiled, everybody clearly unsure what to think.
 
She cleared her throat. “This is partly a scientific story and partly something else entirely.” She paused. “Since the beginning, the human race has always had it rough, constantly struggling to overcome obstacles such as ice ages, plagues and plenty of other unpleasant things. But we’ve also, though often tough to come by, had food and water sources, and some manner of shelter from the elements. Then, as time went on, we improved things for ourselves somewhat.” She smiled again. “And now, for example, we no longer have to go hunting at the crack of dawn to scrounge for breakfast or eat that breakfast shivering in a cave.”
 
Someone laughed.
 
“Fast forward to the present. We’ve made a lot of discoveries, cured a lot of diseases, reached out into space.” She shrugged. “Then along comes climate change and suddenly things don’t look so good. So, we’re staring at that and then, wham, comes Covid-19, followed by the relentless and inexplicable rains.”
 
People shuffled around, some definitely looking nervous and a little put upon.
 
Claire raised her index finger. “So then came the strangest thing of all—the Big Switcheroo.”
 
Blank faces, then a few grins.
 
“Suddenly it stopped raining where it had been and started where it hadn’t, a nearly perfect and complete switch.” Claire sat up straighter. “So, what do I make of that? What does anybody make of that?” She paused. “I really wish I had an answer or even a hypothesis since, as a scientist, that’s my job. But I don’t.” She paused again. “But I can say this. Up there on that mesa in the rain, it struck me that it was as if nature--or God”—she looked at Sam—“were saying in a number of ways that it had been working hard for a long time to keep us going and was worn out and tired of doing the bulk of the work and wanted us to start doing some.
 
“Consider the dinosaurs,” she continued, “a race that once roamed the earth and ruled it. But their abilities and consciousness weren’t very promising. So, one day nature—or God—zapped them with a meteorite. ​

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11

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“I don’t want to be a damned dinosaur,” she declared. “I want to keep myself and the human race going. So, I concluded that if we don’t want nature—or God—to allow us or even cause us to be wiped out, we’d better get moving.”
 
They were all looking at her now, some askance, some a little mystified, a few exasperated or annoyed.
 
“It’s like we’ve been thrown to the wolves and to survive have to fight them. But it also is that if we do, we’ll be the wolf-fighters who learned to conquer and maybe even tame the wolves.” She settled back. “We still may end up extinct like the dinosaurs, but we have an opportunity now to, as a race, survive, and maybe even evolve.”
 
Everybody was quiet. There wasn’t a sound in the room. Then Mark stared at Claire. “Claire, was that supposed to be some kind of . . . pep talk?”
 
Claire nodded crookedly. “I guess maybe it was.”
 
More silence.
 
Then Sarah skidded her chair against the perfectly polished floor. “Well, uh, if it was a pep talk, for me it worked. We all know what Claire said was true. But it focused it in for me and . . . also made me feel I want to get right in there and fight those wolves.” She tittered, but only a little. “And maybe this isn’t the time for throwing out ideas, but . . .  I’ve been thinking that maybe we might look into cloud seeding again. It was a long shot to even try it before since it’s been used mostly to try to cause rain or divert it. But now”—She grinned at Claire—“since we’ve had the Big Switcheroo from mostly rain to mostly dry, we might get somewhere seeding where we need rain.” She paused and looked uncharacteristically serious. “And obviously, though it’s great that we’re not drowning anymore, at this rate, it won’t be long until we’re facing massive drought.”
 
Mark turned towards her. “I like that idea, Sarah,” he surprisingly and almost affably said. “And I’ve been thinking that we need to intensely study the conditions in all our parameters, that is before and after the rains started and then again before and after the Rain Reversal.” He glanced at Claire. “Doing that might help us figure out where to focus cloud seeding as well as tell us a lot of other relevant things.”
 
Across the table, Jose Berrera waved his hand. “I think we should focus on those pockets especially, to see if there is something, anything, they have in common—meteorologically or otherwise—that makes them unique.” He paused and looked pensive. “It seems like there has to be.”
 
Sam chimed in, “One thing I’ve noticed is that many—though not all—of them were dry before the rains started. And that seems promising.” He paused. “And thanks, Claire. I know it doesn’t seem like, as professionals, we’d need something as basic as a pep talk. But I think we really did.”
 
Claire nodded. “And thank you for telling me that story, Sam, and thank your mother too. It really got me going.”​

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​Sitting on the plane, heading home, Claire felt pretty good. For the first time, she genuinely felt they were moving forward. The discussion had been lively. Everybody now seemed to be chomping at the bit to get back to their offices, labs and out into the field. Margaret hadn’t said much, but as they were leaving, she’d nodded and said, “Good going, Claire. We were right that we could count on you.”
 
It was daylight now and, as Claire looked out the window, she thought that this must be how that funny little mammal felt when nature—or God—had tossed that hunk of rock into the Gulf. It remained to be seen what the result of this latest great-rock-drop would be.
 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlene Anderson received an MA in English Literature from Purdue University and an MA in Research Psychology from San Francisco State University and spent most of her working life at the University of California San Francisco in grant administration. As a child, she always knew she would write, told stories to her friends, and even invented a pen name for herself, Charles Andrè. So, while working on budgets and submitting grant proposals at UCSF, she continued to write and, in 2001 published a novel, Berkeley’s Best Buddhist Bookstore. When Vistas & Byways was launched in 2015, she was pleased to be asked to chair the Editorial Board. She has served in that capacity ever since.
  

Other works in this issue:
Bay Area Neighborhoods
Life with COVID 19
Poetry
In the Shadow

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