The Weatherman

Kimberly and Karl believed they were going extinct. They believed that there was an active genocidal conspiracy to develop medical technology that would ensure people like them would not be born to future generations. When they first met in seventh grade, Kimberly and Karl bonded over this conspiracy theory and it informed a world view that united the couple through marriage and into their adult life.

Karl worked at the grocery store down the street from their apartment three days a week while Kimberly kept house. Karl was the overachiever of the duo – Kimberly recognized this in seventh-grade gym class and both of them accepted it.

He is so strong, Ms. Tompkins, the girl’s phys-ed instructor used to say about Karl to the students in her special gym class. After a frustrating round of free-throw practice, Karl would often take the basketball and rail it against the opposing backboard. Even the smart kids were impressed by Karl’s strength. Karl was exceptionally bad at shooting free-throws. The other boys would laugh and point fingers while he struggled to get the ball anywhere close to the hoop, but when he would rail the basketball off the opposing backboard, the boys would stop laughing. One time, as Kimberly looked on from her jumping jacks, Karl began howling and charged headlong towards some boys who were making fun of his free-throw shooting. Throughout the years, Kimberly and Karl shared a memory of the melee that followed Karl’s charge. It was after Mr. Tompkins, the boy’s phys-ed instructor had pulled two boys from Karl’s grip that Kimberly walked up to Karl and for the first time said to him, “You’re so strong.” Now she would say it almost ritualistically nearly every time he went off to the grocery store to do his job bagging groceries.

Karl went to work at the grocery store three days a week while Kimberly stayed home and kept house. She watered the money tree, the rubber tree, the vine, and in the summer she would also water the marigolds outside. Their neighbor Trevor used to wave and say, “Good morning, Marigold” to Kimberly while she watered the flowers in front of their small home, until one day when Kimberly went outside to water the marigolds completely naked. That day Trevor called Kimberly’s aid Amanda to come in early for an emergency. Amanda would typically come on the three days that Karl was at work to help Kimberly with her chores, and she was also available for emergencies, such as the June morning when Kimberly stood naked in her suburban front yard spraying the marigolds with a water hose and waving to Trevor.

On the four days a week that Karl was not scheduled to work, the couple followed a consentient routine. Karl would wake-up first and make a breakfast of coffee and cereal. Often they would eat breakfast in bed while looking at their tablets or laughing with each other. Occasional one of them would get excited or angry and cause a commotion, but their morning routine would always conclude by watching the daily weather report. This short video segment uploaded to the internet six times a week would set the mood for the rest of Kimberly and Karl’s day.

The weatherman was from a different part of the country, so often the weather was inaccurate, but Kimberly and Karl liked this weatherman’s demeanor, cadence, and his frock of silver hair styled in a way that implied an astute sense of showmanship. If either Kimberly or Karl was in a bad mood, the weatherman would recalibrate the atmosphere. Even Amanda agreed that watching the weather report was a perfect way for Kimberly and Karl to start their day.

One of the greatest attributes of this particular weatherman was his consistency. The description of the weather would vary some, but because the weatherman lived in Los Angeles it did not vary much and the weatherman always seemed to be in a good mood no matter what the weather was. Every day the weatherman would follow the same basic structure: he would say good morning, state the date, give a brief synopsis of the current weather, suggest things to do on that particular date, before he offered a weather forecast for that day. For instance, one day in February the weather was reported in the following way.

Good morning! It’s February thirteen, two thousand twenty-one, and it’s a Saturday! Here in L.A. it’s a cold morning, very still right now, 48 degrees Fahrenheit, around nine Celsius. Today is a good day for polishing a block of resin with powdered pumice stone mixed with mineral oil, and perhaps some rotten stone as well. It should be going up to around 64 degrees Fahrenheit, around eighteen Celsius, and it looks like we’re going to be having a mixture of clouds, blue skies, and golden sunshine all along the way! Everyone, have a great day!

Kimberly and Karl would usually laugh and clap when the weatherman would say, “golden sunshine all along the way!” No matter what the current weather was when the weatherman made his forecast, it seemed he always believed the day was headed towards golden sunshine, and his persistent optimism brought Kimberly and Karl joy.

After reporting the weather, the weatherman would issue the lucky number for the day in a separate segment called Today’s Number Is… The day’s lucky number was very important to Kimberly and Karl, and the anticipation of its issuing tended to cause a great deal of anxiety. Each day, Kimberly would record the number in a special notepad, and she and Karl would use the numbers to make an important decision. As the segment began, Karl would frequently shout, Get your notepad, get your notepad, even though Kimberly was typically well prepared to record the number. They were both heavily invested in getting the number recorded accurately and efficiently, and it was one of few tasks that Kimberly and Karl had truly mastered.

In Today’s Number Is the weatherman would stand in front of the camera wearing a straw hat and sunglasses while holding a large jar filled with numbered balls. He would state the date, hold up the jar and say, There are ten balls. Each ball has a number. He would then move the jar in a circular motion in front of his chest, “Swirl the balls! There are ten numbers. Pick a number!” Then he would slowly edge his hand into the jar, building suspense in full understanding that the audience was eagerly anticipating his draw. Clasping a ball in his hand, he would say, “Today’s number is” and then he’d slowly look at the ball as the audience was forced to wait. “Today’s number is,” he said on February thirteen, “Eight!” He held out the number, as he did during every segment, for all the world to see and Kimberly carefully wrote down the number eight in her notepad.

You have such beautiful handwriting, Karl said, as he often would after Kimberly wrote down the number, and the couple shared a kiss.

They would collect the numbers for six days in a row. On the sixth day, Karl would walk to the corner store to buy a lottery ticket. On the Monday following a lottery drawing, Amanda and Kimberly would check the winning numbers together. They had never won the lottery, but after the drawing on Saturday, February thirteen, Amanda pointed out that if Kimberly and Karl would have combined the eight with a three from the previous week’s lucky numbers, they would have had five out of the six winning numbers, worth a prize of several hundred dollars. Kimberly wasn’t immediately sure what to do with this information but it certainly intrigued her. She tried to explain the phenomenon to Karl but he dismissed her saying, Kimberly, you know I’m no good with numbers!

Throughout the week tension was growing between the couple. Kimberly was complaining about a gap in their communication. You never listen to me, she said. Karl wasn’t quite sure what she meant but he wanted to make things right, so on Friday night at the end of his shift at the grocery store, he brought home roses, a bottle of grape juice and thick slabs of freshly cooked pot roast from the grocery store deli. Kimberly shrieked with delight and Karl proceed to seduce his wife. At the end of the night, they had raucous sex for a long time. They were so passionate in their lovemaking that they paid no mind to the headboard of their bed banging off their bedroom wall. They banged the bed so hard that it stirred Trevor next door and he came out of his house with a flashlight to search for noise. When Karl saw the light shining around the snowy yard through the window he ejaculated into Kimberly. The couple started giggling wildly at the thought of Trevor walking around outside at night searching for the source of the banging. Karl rolled over and soon started snoring while Kimberly laid awake for some time looking at the internet.

The next morning when Karl woke-up, Kimberly was sitting upright weeping into her hands. Alarmed, Karl quickly sat up and tried to pull Kimberly’s hands away from her face, pleading with her, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong.” “No, no, no!” Kimberly refused, holding her hands tightly to her face. Karl pulled the blankets back and noticed a small splotch of blood on the bed beneath Kimberly. He sighed, hugged her and kissed her face, telling her that it was okay. Kimberly took her hands away from her blotchy red face, and shouted No, it’s not okay! They are trying to kill us off!

Karl didn’t know what to say. He agreed with Kimberly, there were, in fact, mysterious organizations trying to make sure people like them would not be born to future generations. There was a slow, strange genocide in the works and he couldn’t find the words to describe it in a way that would quiet the anxiety they both felt. He tried to say the things that Amanda said when the topic came-up – that the two of them would not be harmed and, in the end, these mysterious medical advancements would benefit all people – but he wasn’t fully committed to this line of reasoning and his attempts to comfort her came-off as insincere.

We can still have a baby, he said as Kimberly’s weeping at last eased.

Karl reached his arms around Kimberly’s belly and tickled her neck with his lips. She giggled when a stream of drool fell from his mouth and cascaded over her naked breasts.

Stop it! You’re getting me all wet, she said, giggling and crying at the same time. She pushed Karl off, Come on, I wanna watch the weather report!

Good morning! said the weatherman through Kimberly’s tablet. It is February twentieth, two thousand and twenty-one and it’s a Saturday! He went on to say that it was fifty-six degrees with hardly any clouds in the sky. Kimberly and Karl laughed when the weatherman stated the weather conditions because outside of their window was a wintry sky that had left four inches of snow on the ground, and now was pelting icy raindrops against the windowpanes. The weatherman said it was a great day for experimenting with electricity outside, so he was going to connect slabs of old meat to a series of car batteries and record the reaction with a video camera. Kimberly and Karl squinched their faces at each other in humor, confusion and repulsion – they both knew that they were not going to toy with electricity nor with old meat – especially when the skies were, in fact, filled with an icy rain.

The weatherman concluded the segment: It looks like we’re going to be having a mixture of clouds, blue skies and golden sunshine all along the way! Everyone, have a great day! Then Karl implored Kimberly to get her notebook and prepare to record the day’s lucky number.

Kimberly was caught by surprise – she had forgotten to get her notebook before Today’s Number Is began. Where was it? In her bedside table drawer, of course, which was only a little more than an arms-length from where she was sitting. She frantically threw the blankets-off exposing her and Karl’s naked bodies. The bedside table was just far enough away so that, when she reached her arm out to open the drawer, she leaned too far over the edge of the bed and fell onto the floor in a heap.

Kimberly began crying. She was still sitting on the floor as Today’s Number Is  began to play on her iPad, and this only upset Kimberly more. Karl became flustered and didn’t know whether to shout at his wife to get-it together and prepare herself to take down the number, or to once again try to understand why she had been so upset. He leaned his head and shoulders over the edge of the bed and blinked. As the weatherman stated the date, great waves of anxiety rushed over Karl and he blurted out “What’s the matter?”

Kimberly began drying her tears. I don’t want to lose anymore, she said with moist eyes.

We can’t win if we miss the lucky number! Karl replied, trying to force compassion even though all he truly felt was an impassioned desire to record the lucky number before it was too late.

In the end, there was little reason to fuss over the timing of Kimberly’s recovery from her fall. Not only did she have her pen and notebook prepared before the end of the segment, but Karl made an extra effort to memorize the number in case Kimberly could not compose herself in time. Karl rocked back and forth repeating six, six, six, six under his breath as Kimberly carefully wrote down the number six, at the end of a series of five other numbers in her notebook.

What’s the jackpots!? Karl asked clapping his hands frantically.

Kimberly was holding the notebook book close to her chest and writing in it while her tongue twisted around the edges of her mouth. Kimberly normally did not take this much time. Normally, she simply wrote down the digits from the preceding six days on a separate piece of paper and handed it to Karl so he could walk down to the corner store and buy a lottery ticket. She was quite good at her task and it usually only took her a few strokes of her pen to have the note prepared for Karl.

Well? said Karl growing impatient.

Hold on! She said, clearly still frustrated with whatever had been bothering her all week.

What’s wrong?

Just a second! Kimberly scratched a number out then added another, while Karl looked-on, clearly confused.

At last, she put her notebook down and began writing the six digits on a new piece of paper for Karl to take to the store. She handed Karl the note with the following numbers written on it: 89, 7, 2, 0, 9, 6.

Karl was confused again. Is this right? he asked.

Yes, we have to do it this way now.

What is it? Karl said in frustration.

Kimberly made a stern face. I have been trying to tell you! she said with anger. Karl turned very quickly, covered his ears and started shouting into his chest, I don’t want the wrong number. I don’t want the wrong number. I don’t want the wrong number!

Kimberly mustered all the breath she could and shrieked Stop! right into Karl’s face. Karl uncovered his ears and looked at her with doughy eyes.

But how do we know if it’s the right number, he said.

It is the right number, said Kimberly.

No, it’s not, said Karl.

Yes, it is! shrieked Kimberly, this time with such intensity that complete silence fell over the four rooms in their house. Amanda showed me the numbers, she said trying to regain calm, we would win the lotto if we put the lucky numbers like this.

Karl did not want to argue with his wife any longer. He looked down at the note she had just handed him and read each number out loud. Kimberly nodded with a stern and knowing face. OK, he said suddenly cheering-up, I guess it’s time to get the Jackpots! Kimberly smiled and clapped her hands as Karl got dressed for the ice storm.

After he had put on his coat, mittens, snow pants, and velcroed the straps of his boots, he held his arms outstretched and said smiling, just call me Mr. Jackpots.

OK, Mr. Jackpots!

As Karl opened the door, she shouted after him, Have fun in the beautiful golden sunshine!

All along the way, he said, as he walked out the door and down to the corner to buy a lottery ticket in the icy, wintry mix.