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Blame It on the Rain

God awoke and rambled onto his porch. The rain soaked his driveway. I could make it a sunny day, God thought, but if I scheduled rain, I must have had a good reason for it.

***

Jack stumbled onto his front stoop. As he set the sprinkler on the saturated grass, a car pulled up.

“Hey, don’t I know you? What are you doing? Can’t you see its pouring out?” the driver called.

“Forecast said sun,” Jack grunted.

“You’re the T.V. weatherman, right?”

Jack began his walk to the station..

***

Jean awoke grinning. She quickly sat up, threw her legs over the side of the bed, and stood up. She was reminded of the first time she had ridden her bike without training wheels. For the last 12 years a body cast had kept her in bed. Jean opened her diary to the entry from last night.

1.      go to the beach

2.      walk in the park

3.      ride a bicycle.

She glanced at the cross hanging on the wall. “Thank you so much for this one day of freedom.”

***

God sighed as he looked out at the rain. His brow creased as he tried to remember. There was a girl, and she needed a good day. Who was she? Then it all came flooding back like Noah on his Ark. The girl had been in a body cast since she was five years old. Now she needed a life-saving operation, but afterwards she’d be restricted to her bed for a year. She’d only have one day of freedom before the surgery.

Was that today, he thought. Where’s my calendar?

***

Jack sloshed into the Television station, dripping all the way to his desk. He rolled his eyes when he saw the sticky note from his boss: See me asap!

“Jack, it’s happened too often. We don’t pay you to be wrong. You’re fired.”

Jack stormed out of the station manager’s office and headed back into the downpour. “What? Am I supposed to be omniscient?” he muttered to himself.

***

Jean took her new bathing suit and bike helmet from the closet and put them in her beach bag. She smiled and headed down to the kitchen. She turned on the TV, poured some cereal, glanced out of the window, and suddenly noticed the thunderous rainstorm. “NO!” she screamed. She turned towards the TV where a cross hung on the wall above. “How could you do this to me? This is my one day!”

***

Gabriel flew through the door.

 “Well, the farmers and firefighters will be happy for this rain.”

“Yeah, maybe it was a good idea,” God said. “But there’s this girl; she really needed a nice day. I don’t know.”

***

Jean tore the cross from the wall and threw the front door open. Glaring out into the storm she screamed, “I’ll never believe in you again!” and hurled the cross out the door.

The cross hit Jack on his right temple, inducing an immediate throbbing headache. He turned and saw a girl seething at him from her front doorway. “What the hell was that for?” he said.

“I hate you,” Jean screamed back. If you’re listening God, Jean prayed, please fire that damned weatherman.

God damn, Jack thought to himself, it’s like these people think I made it rain!

***

God waved as Gabriel flew off into the rain. “Wow, it still hasn’t let up,” God thought. “Guess I really knew what I was doing.”