September-- Mike

Mike lugged his backpack into his room and took out the laptop. There was nothing good on television so he had decided to try his luck in cyberspace instead. He went and checked his email first and found one from Zach from that morning, which read as follows:


Hey Mikey, (Mike growled when he saw this, but kept reading)


Here's a link to a database of old essays. I know reading isn't exactly your favorite hobby, but read the one called "The Necessity of Atheism" anyway. Nice follow-up on our previous discussion. Nick asked me to send you this link to a joke-site he found, which I'm going to include against my better judgement. Have fun.

-Zach



There was another short email from Nick:


I've asked Zach to send you this link but don't know if he did or not. If not, here it is.

Nicolas


A grudging smile spread itself across his face. Someone ought to consider listing "friend" as a hobby, or even better: a full time occupation. It took enough time...and people get paid too. Sort of. Well, not the usual sorts of payment, anyhow.

He twitched when he heard something rattle against the window. It was rain.

Nutty weather, he thought, since it seldom rained in September in California.



"This weather's crazy!" exclaimed Zach as heavy drops suddenly started pelting them. "There, this way!"

"I take it it doesn't normally rain here in September?" panted Nick as he followed Zach under the eaves of a nearby building.

"No it doesn't," replied Zach. They stood and watched the rain for a few minutes.

I wonder if this is part of global warming, thought Nick. Weird weather.

The weather's getting crazier every year, thought Zach. Then again, the world seems to be getting crazier every year, so that doesn't seem to be much of standard.

The sudden rain stopped as quickly as it came. In less than five minutes the sky turned perfectly clear and the Milky Way would've been visible to them if they weren't surrounded by electric lights.

What promised to be a dark and stormy night changed into a sky full of (if unseen) stars.

"Huh," said Zach, as they set their way home again. Crazier and crazier, he thought.

"Is it usually like that here?" asked Nick, who was wondering if he should consider bringing an umbrella with him at all times.

"No," answered Zach, staring up into the sky with some bemusement. He nearly walked into a pole and realized that he had much better kept his eyes on were he was going.

The dark and stormy night canceled its appointment and slouched away to another place, where there was no appointment, but had higher priorities anyway. Perfectly dark and stormy nights were getting quite rare, so their presence were much sought after by villains everywhere, a few humans who just enjoyed getting bashed around in the element for the hell of it, and some Others that no one knew about for reasons that would be completely irrational if explained.

Asylums, after all, were hardly places to be rational in.