Old Tom

I FELT IT IN MY KNEES, LONG BEFORE IT SHOWED UP. I was telling Mary, down at the bakery, about it weeks before it filled the sky. I stop at the bakery every day, though I haven’t bought bread since my Helen died. Told Bob at the grocers too. Told everyone at the post office, the hardware store, and at the bank. Told everyone I could. I was warning people in the street: old neighbours, acquaintances, even strangers.
  ‘I can feel it in me knees—there’s gonna be a breeze,’ I’d say. Just ask anyone, I was saying it, months ago. But it wasn’t gonna be a breeze. It was gonna be the end of us, unless we did something.
  But no one believed me. No one takes old Tom seriously. I’m there telling them to take heed, to prepare for the worst, but on they went, like the clear skies would last forever. They’d all just pat me on the shoulder, like the way they did after Helen passed, and tell me to look after myself. Myself? I was trying to look after them!
  I even stopped our family doctor, he was jogging in the park. Had to call his name three times to get him to stop. Told him what my knees were predicting. Dr Owens, at that point, said that it wasn’t the weather that I had to worry about. He’d been the one to diagnose Helen’s cancer. Told me that my knees had to do with calcium deficiency. Calcium! Have you ever heard such nonsense? It’s not my diet; it’s the goddamn weather. I’d show him.
  I stocked up on canned food—chilli, baked beans, corned beef, sardines and soup. Never have too much canned goods. It tastes much better than when I was a child. Back then—you won’t believe this—but back then they used to seal the cans with lead. Kid you not! But we were fine. Almost no one ever got sick. Well, almost. Helen got sick, but that was probably from the water. Who knows? All these modern doctors, with their health scares. Ain’t nothin’ to worry about, except the goddamn weather.
  Dr Owens had me come in for tests. And more tests. He and his colleagues just like pokin’ and proddin’ me. Fusspots. Speculating what’s wrong.
  I already know. I do. You ain’t gonna believe me either when I tell ya. It’s them clouds, with all them colors, shimmering from sun up to sun down. Everyone says it ain’t natural.
  A couple months after them clouds showed up, the doctor called me back in, all serious like. Thought he was worried about the clouds, which I had warned him would be trouble. But he looks at me like I’m crazy, says something like, ‘The clouds are not what we need to talk about.’
  The nerve! We need serious talks about the weather. We need a plan for treatment. Everyone always complains about the weather, but ain’t no one willing to do nothin’ ‘bout it.
  Owens looked at me the way he did at Helen, and said, ‘The tests—well, there's no easy way to deliver bad news—’
  I couldn't understand a word he was saying ‘cause now the thunder comes at all hours. In my ears. I had asked baker Mary if she could hear it the day before, but she just stared out her window at the clouds.
  ‘Na. That’s not what I’m hearing,’ she said.
  She started talking about some song or something. Doesn’t matter. Wasn’t worth arguing over. She’ll hear nothing but thunder soon enough. They all will. Mark my words.
  Anyways, the ol’ doc made no sense. I think he’s gone done too many tests. Instruments can lie, and when one doctor gets yapping with another, all their theories multiply. Ain’t no certainty in medicine, never was, never will be. Every test just beggin’ more questions.
  So, there I was listening to sawbones dronin’ on, and—outta nowhere—my eyes started reactin’ to the weather. They got the rain from the clouds ‘cause the clouds don’t seem to know how to rain. Not everyone’s got that yet, but some do, I seen ‘em staring at the clouds, with drizzle comin’ down their cheeks. But still, it’s mostly just me getting the weather.
  ‘I feel fine. I got all the remedies I need,’ I told him, as I wiped away the downpour. I patted his shoulder, and told him to take care.
  I didn’t tell him about my feet. Probably just trench foot. Probably from standing in the flooding. Sure, no one else is feeling the water risin’ yet—but they will. Mark my words. I’m feeling it first.
  The skin on my feet looked like I’d been in the bath too long. And turning black. And the smell. No, I ain’t showing the doctor that. He’ll have me in some hospital bed. Helen had been in a bed for months. I don’t got that time; got too much canned food to get through. Expiry dates ain’t what they used to be, ya know.
  At night, a darkness climbs my legs. I’m not telling the doctor about that either. Been treating it with whisky, which does the trick. After a few, the darkness subsides, and I fall asleep, usually in my recliner in front of the TV.
  But I’ve been waking up with snow in my lungs. It melts into slush as I get my morning tea down. I then start coughing up what looks like the green slurpy the kids get at the convenience store. But I’ve shoveled snow in my time, believe you me. My back couldn’t handle it these days, but there was a time I would clear the sidewalks all around the block so Helen could use her walking frame. Dr Owens recommended she got out as much as she could, to keep up her strength. She never made it as far as I cleared, never more than a couple houses, but I was hopeful she’d get better. I’m not afraid of snow. It’s always easier to get warm than it is to get cool.
  Which is why, recently, my high temperature’s been troublin’. Almost had me going back to Dr Owens. I started taking the ibuprofen because that’s all he’d have given anyways. Handfuls of it. But it wasn’t doin’ nothin’ for the heat. I knew it wasn’t me; it’s gotta be the blistering heatwave. I’d been saying it for weeks, if anyone would just listen. Damn, it’s hot. At least it’s a dry heat.
  I asked Bob the grocer how the heat was treating his vegetables. I’ve known Bob for decades. He can sometimes be a difficult man. He tried to argue with me. Said it hadn’t been too hot on account of the clouds, cool and sweet smelling.
  ‘But that’s all this modern air conditioning, isn’t it?’ I told him.
  He shrugged, like he didn’t know what I was talking about. He knew. He was just sore from losing the argument to me. Such a stubborn man. He knew they kept the stores too damn cold these days. Ain’t good for your health. Not five minutes later, in the canned goods aisle, I slipped on what must have been a patch of ice in there. Damn near broke my hip.
  All the staff came running. Such a fuss made over nothing. Dented a few of the cans of beans, though. Bob gave them to me at half price. I also haggled for some butter, so when I got home, I could rub it on my forehead. I felt a sunburn coming on.
  When I got home, I limped into the bathroom to get a better look at my forehead. I couldn’t see the burn in the mirror, but I knew it was there, long before it was going to show up, so I started rubbing the butter on it. Home remedies are still the best. In the end, Helen only wanted camomile tea to soothe her. I must have made ten cups a day.
  My hip ached, but something in my gut felt dislodged. I coughed my way through half a can of beans that night. I wasn’t sure what was next for me. Lightning? Hail? Tropical typhoon? My bowels wouldn’t survive that. I sat in front of my TV, volume up to hear it over the thunder.
  All they talked about was the weather. But nobody was doing anything about it. Boy, if I was a younger man, I’d do something. Ya should’ve seen me back in my day. Then on screen, a new hotline number. Call in if you have any information about the cloud formation, they said.
  Well, about time someone started to listen to reason. I’ve been trying to tell them for months. So I gave them a call. A nice young woman answered, and I started telling her everything I knew.
  She wasn’t too bright, but she was polite. She kept asking me to slow down, and I had to repeat my name to her several times. She asked for my address and telephone number. I told her I was a living weathervane, I could point them in the direction of what was going to happen. I was the future! She liked that line, and said the station would be in touch.
  I wasn’t born yesterday, ya know. They always say that they’ll call you back, but it’s not like it used to be. No one calls back any more. Not old friends. Not family. Only doctors with bad news.
  So imagine my surprise the following morning when a TV crew showed up at my door. Can you believe it? At my very door! I wasted no time showing them what the weather had been doing to me, showing them my feet, my forehead, my veins. I showed them my whisky cure. I had them yell their questions so I could hear them over the thunder.
  Twice we took a break while I coughed up slush. It had gone from green to black. They asked if I had seen a doctor, and I told them I had. But that, clearly, science don’t got the answers no more. Can’t be trusted. The TV people were nice folks. Good listeners. Lots of questions about Helen. My eyes did that thing where they rained on behalf of the clouds again.
  That night, on the six o’clock news, there I was, yours truly. Answering the door with butter melting down my face. Sticking my frail naked legs—bruised hip and darkening veins—up in the air for the camera to get a good look at. They showed a close up of my blackened soggy feet. They showed the framed black and white of Helen and I on our wedding day. The drizzle on my cheeks. They even had a few seconds of me coughing my sludge out. Also, great shots of my canned hoard and empty whisky bottles.
  It was glorious. Me. Showing the world what was to become of it.
  They asked if I thought that I was the future.
  ‘This will happen to all you all, if ya don’t start doing something ‘bout it. Stop yer lollygagging!’
  And they broadcast that message to everyone who still watched the evening news. Boy, this would get things going! I knew it. I hoped Mary and Bob had seen it. I’d tell them about it tomorrow. I wished Helen could have seen it too.
  As I sat that night in my recliner, watching my report, I had the strangest sensation course through me. Started in my gut again, but I had switched from beans to soup, so it couldn’t be the diet. The next phase of the weather, I thought. Figured I’d let it play out, see what was what, and then call the station back to give them an update.
  I became a heavy fog. Head to toe. Pea soup. And I was rising, gently lifting from the recliner. Dissipating. Clearing. Oh, Helen! I knew it would end like this. Just ask anyone, I’ve been saying it for months. 🙭

First published as a part of a Substack collaboration known as The Weather Reports, led by Jon T at Ferns of Columbo. The cumulative effect of the stories, written independent from each other, but sharing so much of the similar anxiety of our times, reveals something difficult to show: how we are all affected these days by forces far beyond our comprehension or control. Some respond with steady hands. Others lose their shit. But no one goes untouched.

Please, if you don’t have time to read them all, check out: Elain, The Hymenopterist, Sora, Dolores, and The Friend. Also, listen to the haunting theme song for the anthology.