Storms and Sunshine

Storms, no matter how violent or docile, are contagious. Infectious. From one person to another, it looms overhead, threatening an evening rain or hail.

The sun flirts with its warmth and light on one while another is drenched in cold wet, their soggy newspaper failing as an umbrella substitute. 

What can a dry person do? They soak in the blue above, euphoria etched onto their face, knowing that it's only a fleeting bit of blue, but a pretty blue regardless. Then, from across the street, a drenched, depressed bloke says meekly: "Help."

They dare not look. Dare not glance, even in their peripheral. The sun seduces only briefly; why should they miss out? What can they do for the gloomy person across the way?

"Help."

The sun blows a kiss goodbye. "Later, gator." That's it. The pretty blue already clocked out. Oh no. 

Now, two drenched people stand across from each other, staring intensely, almost violently, into each other's ether. They utter one word, a word a two-year-old can scream, a term that crosses language barriers and borders:

"Help."

Neither can, and now they're both in the dark, in the gray, in the monotone of the persistent afternoon storm, knowing even if the clouds part, the blackness of the evening will refuse to grant relief.