2019. Portobello, Edinburgh
Cyril had been living with Janet for around three weeks before he discovered the view of the sea and the sky. She’d come home earlier than usual, and instead of finding him hanging tousled and moist above the shower, he was pressed hard up against one of the kitchen windows. She must have forgotten to close the door. Janet stood in the doorway and studied him. The thickest part of him, towards his upper edge, was misting the inside of the window. Patterns rippled out across the glass in the shape of lips or boats or a child’s drawing of birds.
The cloud seemed anxious, on edge somehow. His tendrils lifted and fell and lifted and slid over the kitchen workbench. Ice crystals scattered across the linoleum floor. Janet picked her way through them and stood beside him, looking out. Above the milky grey of the flat sea were storm clouds. Cumulonimbus. There were three distinct clouds, with dark glutinous bases and towering granite walls that shimmered up to the troposphere. A sudden squall rattled the window.s She started, swinging her arms up across her face. The sea thickened and darkened into an oily charcoal paste. The crack and flash of the first thunderbolt threw Cyril across the kitchen and out into the hall. She thought she heard him shout. Yell out something. The kitchen lights flickered and went out. Another squall of wind hit the windows. The tenement sighed and shuddered. Downstairs a baby cried. Janet heard the bathroom door slam shut. Cyril, she presumed, rushing for cover. There was nothing in the manual to help her with this.
To be continued.
SANDERLINGS 