How I control the weather.

Yes, I control the weather. I have supernatural powers. If I want sunshine, I just have to get a sunburn the day before. If I want rain, I just have to hang out a load of laundry. Today I did the latter. It will probably start raining within the hour. Do I care? Do I sound like I care? Rain is good, my flowers will slurp it up and reward the heavens by lifting their colourful faces skyward in abundance. The grass will grow, the river will run high, and all will be green and shiny in the world. Except for my laundry, which will be sodden and heavy and depressed hanging from the clothes line.

On the line right now, apart from the socks, underwear, tennis clothes and bathmats, is a Hallowe’en costume: Death’s black, hooded robe. It flaps in the wind as though the Grim Reaper himself were wearing it on his rounds, although it is as empty of an occupant as Death is empty of compassion. Once wet, it will be mournful, morose, melancholic. It will drag groundward as it tries to enter the nether realm. It will be unsuccessful. Because eventually the sun will come out and do its thing, and Death’s robe will revert to its innocuous form of a Hallowe’en costume.