“Your productivity is down twelve percent this quarter,” my boss says, shuffling papers on her desk while I try not to make it rain in her office. Again.
Last time, her ergonomic chair rusted, and we were mopping up the lobby for hours.
I shift in my seat, feeling Mrs. Henderson’s divorce storm from last week churning under my ribs. “I’ve been a little overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed.” She glances out the window where the sky is suspiciously green. “That’s not like you, Jim. You’re usually our most… stable employee.”
If she only knew. I’ve got three teenagers’ worth of angst swirling in my left shoulder (the acne-related tantrums alone could flood a basement), my neighbor’s midlife crisis thundering in my chest, and somewhere near my pancreas, there’s a wedding’s worth of happy tears trying to turn into a rainbow.
I’m basically a walking Weather Channel.
“I just need a few days off,” I say, watching her spider plant wilt as my colleague Dave’s depression seeps out of my pores. Sorry, plant. “To clear my head.”
She frowns at her computer. “You haven’t taken a sick day in seven years.”
“I’m very healthy.” When you’re carrying other people’s emotional storms, you can’t afford to add your own sniffles to the mix. Last time I got a cold, I created a small blizzard in July.
“Take the week,” she says finally. “But Jim? Maybe see someone about —” she waves her hand at the mini-tornado forming over my head “— whatever this is.”
“Yes, right. Of course.” I dip my head as I stand up and dust my pants off. The two-year-old throwing a tantrum this morning on the train sent frost up my legs.
Sigh. My dry cleaning bill is always sky high.
Time to head to the beach.
I avoid as many people as possible as I take public transit out of town. The beach is empty when I arrive, which is good. Last time I tried this at high noon in August, some teenager’s first breakup caused a waterspout that stole three beach umbrellas and a cooler full of White Claw.
I wade into the surf, already feeling the pressure building. Mrs. Henderson’s divorce starts first, rolling out of me in waves of arctic rain. (Her ex was cold-hearted. Get it? Sometimes emotional weather has a sense of humor.) The teenagers’ angst follows, creating a light show of lightning that would put a Pink Floyd concert to shame.
Dave’s depression is harder to shift. It clings like fog, but eventually it joins the storm front, turning the clouds a deeper shade of green. The wedding joy bursts out last, and for a moment, the whole sky shimmers with aurora borealis colors.
That’s when I notice the small crowd gathering on the beach.
“It’s beautiful,” someone whispers, phones up, recording.
They think it’s a weather phenomenon. A meteorological miracle. They don’t realize they’re watching their own feelings paint the sky — the collective grief, joy, anger, and love of an entire city, filtered through one exhausted human barometer.
I should tell them to step back. This much emotional weather in one place can be dangerous.
But then the last of it leaves me, the wedding joy mixing with the divorce rain, the teenage angst swirling with Dave’s depression, and suddenly —
The northern lights are dancing over the Atlantic in July.
Sometimes letting go looks a lot like magic.
Image made with Midjourney.
Prompt provided by NoGENver, GoOnWrite.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this story on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/-n17t8zc3nk
