Murray meets her on the bus. She is ninety, maybe three hundred. Wears a coat the color of mistakes and a hat shaped like a small, aggressive boat. She carries a parcel wrapped in tinfoil.
He is twenty-seven, a professional understudy. Quiet elbows, nervous shoes.
She sits beside him, collapsing into her seat. “I’ve just ironed four clouds,” she says. “They were wrinkled with worry. Can’t have that drifting overhead.”
Murray nods. Of course. “Did they thank you?”
“One of them spat,” she says. “But in fairness, it was cumulus. They’re always dramatic.”
They ride in comfortable silence. Her parcel begins to hum. He offers a peppermint. She declines, but then takes it anyway.
“I like your quiet,” she says. “Most people clatter.”
“I try to keep my sounds inside,” he replies. “They get lost if I let them out.”
She pats his knee. She smells like cinnamon. “You’ll need a louder soul someday. You’ll be called upon.”
“For what?” he asks.
She considers. “Possibly a goat emergency. Possibly love. It’s unclear.”
At her stop, she stands with a series of creaks and one celebratory twirl. She hands the understudy the parcel. “It’s warm. Not in temperature. In temperament.”
He stares. “I can’t—”
“You already have,” she says. “The clouds told me.”
She leaves. The bus lurches forward. The parcel vibrates faintly, like a cat purring.
He does not open it. Instead, he speaks to it softly, like a future.
When he steps off the bus an hour later, a tiny rainbow follows him for three blocks. He does not ask it why.
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