We Don’t Talk About It

Instead, we discuss the weather – gray and humid much of today, thunder showers expected later, lasting throughout the weekend.

“We may be glad for it,” a woman says, to no one in particular. “It could help.”

She’s standing on the platform waiting for a train. The man next to her, fingers his collar, loosens his tie.

“With the humidity,” she says, but no one answers.

There are some things you just don’t talk about, so we discuss the highs and lows instead. What percent chance of rain.

But not how it follows us around.

Later, I’m standing in front of the station, watching it pour. A man, wearing a rain jacket over a blue jumpsuit, his name stitched over his left breast, comes up next to me. He stops, waits, as if we had any choice about going out in it.

“It’s really coming down,” I tell him.

“Yep,” he says, “looks like it ain’t going to quit.”

“Nope,” I agree. “Not any time soon.”