Rain, Rain Go Away

The villagers weep and curse the skies. The driving, endless rain has not stopped for a full three weeks. Once-green fields have been reduced to oceans of brown mud interspersed with a tapestry of deep puddles. The beautiful high wheat that had soared upward under the bountiful sun of the majority of the summer has been trampled into the ground, along with all expectations for the harvest. Gently babbling brooks have become angry and dangerous torrents. Small ponds have become giant, murky lakes. A cow was lost to the water. Then a child. Then several houses. The old Gods have been taken out of their hidden places in the depths of the night, prayed to, sacrificed to, begged. It's not going to be an easy Winter.

The Sun Is Rising on Mars Right Now

I used to go to that bar but they stopped serving anything but the House Special.

I sat out on the street, the street corner, everything pale in the ugly, washed-out light. Water on the asphalt, water on the concrete, water in the air. Eyes burning from peering through the curls of cigarette smoke that danced in front of my face.

This fuckin city.

You're not getting away, and that's the truth. If you happen to hold a deluded notion of escape somewhere in that empty beer can of a brain of yours, it is very, very wrong. You have some bills to pay. I'm going to collect them.