The Rainless Cloud Society

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

Shuffling down the deserted street towards her office, Bin made every effort to ignore the aerial performance that bathed her in a soft violet glow. What will you do about it, her parents asked day after day, as though their asking would eventually produce an answer to their liking. The clouds followed her, teasing and taunting, writhing and shifting as they enacted scene after lurid scene from her subconscious, marking her as one of the Unconverted.

Reaching a drab grey building, she tripped down three flights of stairs to a subterranean office room. Thus ensconced beneath earth and stone, she breathed a small sigh of relief. The purple clouds outside would finally disappear, and the pink hue would fade from the sky, plunging their small town back into darkness.

In the morning, before the sky became flooded with grey storm clouds, and the streets crowded with commuters huddled under umbrellas, Bin would make the dash again, head down, eyes averted, back to her parents’ apartment, a tiny single-bedroom home that they’d subdivided with used bed sheets. But until then, she had work to do—a lot of work to do.

With a small groan, she slumped into a lopsided office chair (a wheel had fallen off earlier that week but she hadn’t known how to fix it) and surveyed the rows of jars on her desk. Most appeared empty aside from some foggy condensation against the glass, but there were a few with minuscule droplets of colored liquid clinging to their bottoms. As Cloud Analyst, it was Bin’s job to measure, analyze, and record the contents of each jar. Her meticulous reports would be sent to the town’s Office of Meteorology at the end of the week, where the chief meteorologist would examine her work and decide whether payment was warranted. If so, her family would be able to stay in their apartment for another week. If not—well, there was no need for her to consider that morbid thought; it would never happen. Bin’s reports had been lauded as the best the chief meteorologist had seen from any analyst, perhaps even better than those of his senior analysts. Now, wasn’t it a pity she was not one of the Converted? Perhaps she could reconsider…?

Bin closed her eyes briefly, as though that would shut off the persistent voices in her mind. It didn’t. Instead, the chief meteorologist’s puffy face floated across her vision like a lonesome cloud, his watery eyes patronizingly sympathetic, wasn’t it a pity, a pity, a— Her eyes popped back open, as did fifty other pairs of eyes. Her own face stared back at her, reflected fifty times over in the glass jars: black hair cropped to the chin, mauve lips turned down in a scowl, and a smattering of freckles that ran across her nose and cheeks. She grabbed a jar, wrenched open the lid, and began to write.

At half past one, her mother’s face showed up at the bottom of a jar, resentful and complaining. Bin wrote down her observations as quickly as she could before screwing on the lid and sliding the jar to the farthest edge of the desk.

Ten minutes before three, her old college roommate tapped on the side of a jar with her nose pressed against the glass interior, worried and frantic. Bin took three jars and swapped them over and over until she could not remember which jar her roommate had appeared in. Then she set all three aside for later.

At half past four, the chief meteorologist shot out of a jar like a genie from a bottle and pointed his bloated index finger at Bin, who’d finally had enough. She slammed the jar shut and checked the clock. She had about two hours left to get through the remaining jars. Glancing between her reports and the blinking time, she made up her mind to take a quick break before resuming her work.

—

The office building’s “rooftop garden” was really a swampy junkyard. Old patio furniture lay in disorganized heaps, bleeding rust onto the sodden ground, while mangled umbrellas stood like battle-worn sentries, their limbs crooked and their garments shredded. All had lost against the persistent rainfall that began with every breaking dawn.

Perched uneasily on a dry armrest, Bin chewed on her bottom lip and waited. It was not unusual for her anxiety to escalate on Fridays—that was when her reports were due after all—but today, well, today had been particularly awful for whatever reason. She worried at a scab on her arm as a wisp of lavender emerged in the sky. At five in the morning, the streets below were still empty, and the clear skies were just beginning to lighten in anticipation of the sun that they would never see. She hoped that the sunrise would at least partially mask the mass of purple swirling towards her. The sky blushed violet in response. Perhaps it was too wishful of her.

Back in the city, it would have been common, normal even, to see clouds of color during the day. No one hid in subterranean offices unless they wanted to, and no one wanted to unless they were awaiting conversion. The Unconverted walked their dogs, had coffee with friends, made out with lovers, and generally went about their business unbothered, with whimsical clouds in all shades and combinations of color dancing above them. The Converted grumbled and side-eyed, their grey clouds spewing rain and creating puddles that made it difficult for the Unconverted to walk their dogs, but there wasn’t much they could do about the colorful eyesores. Her bolder friends in college had even organized a protest where they’d lined up on a dry part of the street, their clouds hovering overhead like one enormous psychedelic umbrella, and held up signs that read, “That’s enough rain!” or “Earth is drowning!” and “Bring back the color!”

Bin sighed at the memory, and the clouds deepened to a somber shade of wine. But here, in her hometown, small and isolated, there was no one she could debate the ethics of too much rain with. There was no one who dared or even wanted to organize rainless walks or outdoor luncheons. Everyone walked about with their grey storm clouds, their waterproof boots and raincoats and massive umbrellas, and they were applauded by the Office of Meteorology for their contributions to the town, for being the rain that nourished the earth and sustained the people. No one had heard of too much rain, despite the annual increases in precipitation that threatened to submerge them all in watery graves. We’ll just build on higher ground, they all said. And no one, not one, including her own parents, cared for what Bin had to say.

Out on the terrace, she watched her clouds for a while longer, vacillating between defiance and resignation. Eventually, the imminent daybreak accompanied by the image of her remaining jars and incomplete reports shoved all other thoughts out of the way and sent her stumbling back down all thirteen flights of stairs—ten above ground and three below ground.

—

Breakfast was a family affair. (It was breakfast to her parents and sister but dinner to Bin, not that anyone cared to speak in her terms. A meal in the morning was breakfast, regardless of whether one had just arisen or was soon retiring to bed.) It was the only time all four of them were present around the kitchen table—two wooden step stools pushed together while they sat on the floor—and Bin absolutely dreaded it. She would have stayed in the office longer had she not found the thought of wading through the pouring rain amidst much tsking and head-shaking even more loathsome.

Now, nibbling on the corner of a fried dough stick, she wondered if the storm outside would have been more tolerable. In between the clinking of spoons and the slurping of porridge, she was certain she could hear her mother’s impatience building with each held breath. Just say it, just say it already, Bin thought. A puff of purple drifted by the window, followed closely by a horde of grey. It was inevitable that the rain and hail would come.

“So, what will you do about it?” her mother finally asked, releasing the room from its turbulent silence.

Bin nearly laughed in relief. Instead, she shrugged, gaze locked pointedly on her porridge. She counted the grains of pulpy rice on her spoon before answering. “I don’t know yet.”

“When will you know?” her mother snapped.

This time, Bin did laugh. “I don’t know when I’m supposed to know. What kind of a question is that?”

“Watch your tone,” her father warned, his eyes disapproving. A bolt of lightning speared through the grey clouds outside. “Your mother is only worried about you.”

Bin rolled her eyes. The ceiling was grimy. “Fine. I’m not sure which day and which hour I will know, Mother, but rest assured that you will be the first to know.” She frowned contemplatively. “Except for myself of course—but hey, perhaps you will know before I do, seeing how little of anything I know anyways.”

Storm clouds pressed against the window, oppressive and watchful. “What happened—I mean, I don’t understand, you weren’t born this way,” her mother complained, waving her hand at Bin as though she were an irksome insect.

“Indeed,” her father agreed. “You were so bright as a child. We placed all our hopes on you.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have,” Bin retorted. “Maybe you should have bet on Tin instead.”

To her disbelief, her mother nodded. “Yes, we should have. But how could we have known?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, the point is you shouldn’t have bet at all—”

“Language!” Her father slammed a hand on the stool, causing their bowls of porridge to jump and jiggle.

Outside, a small patch of indigo tried to avoid being swallowed by a swathe of ashen gloom.

“Oh, let her be,” Tin groaned. “Bin is the smart one, remember? The one who soared away to college in the big city.” She widened her eyes dramatically as she exaggerated each word.

Bin glared at her sister. Of course Tin would make things worse.

Her mother buried her face in her hands and moaned. “College, don’t even get me started on college. What did they teach you there? To disrespect your parents? To disregard all wisdom and tradition?”

“Sounds about right,” Tin said smugly.

Bin pushed herself upright. “I’m finished here.”

“Wait, you didn’t finish your porridge and dough—”

Bin stared into her mother’s face. “Honestly, Mother. Why do you care whether or not I finish my porridge? As long as I pay the rent and Tin’s tuition, you should have nothing to worry about.”

—

At a quarter to ten, only half an hour after she’d managed to fall into a hazy nightmare, Bin was shaken awake again by her mother.

“Someone is here to see you,” her mother said, lips pressed tightly together as one might when walking through a swarm of flying gnats.

And before Bin could even ask who, her makeshift bed sheet door was flung open by a pale, bloated hand.

The chief meteorologist flooded into her bedroom, looking utterly livid.