Debut Flash: 'Weather' by Eliza Ying He

The stack of paper from therapy he rips apart in a spike of anger falls like snowflakes and freezes the ground over, and you are glad. You are glad that it’s just some innocuous worksheets (''Setting Life Goals and Priorities'') and not another shattered bowl, another fist-size hole in the wall, another wordless drive to the ER and two sullen shadows under a blade of moon. You are glad it's only one p.m, which means today is far from over, because Tomorrow is like Singapore’s weather: sunny in theory, until the rain says fuck you and makes your hardended hopes soggy. You stop looking at the forecast. You stop thinking about whether the next chemical cocktail his psychiatrist conjures can coax him into living. Later today he cleans up the messes and brings home the last batch of egg tarts from your favorite corner shop in apology, the vestiges of the boy you love returning to his body. The palm-sized little suns thaw the room as you two bicker over whether gelato is superior to ice cream. You steal the last egg tart from the box and eat it deliberately, savoring every bite of its golden, flaky happiness. You don't think about tomorrow.

 

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Eliza Ying He is a California-based writer who writes code during the day so she can write freely at night. Her work has appeared in Reactor (formerly Tor.com). Find her @elizayinghe on Twitter.