Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own imagination. The characters depicted here all belong to J.K. Rowling except for those that I have fabricated for the story's purpose. The song lyric belongs to Kelly Clarkson and company.
A/N: I'm still here, and still going. NaNoWriMo hurts my brain. Enjoy.
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Because of you
I learn to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt
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"A cold front is coming our way but don't worry! Most locations should receive just enough rain to get those begonias just damp enough, so all of you green thumbs out there should keep the watering cans inside today. My seven-day forecast is coming up in just a little bit; back to you, Ted," he says, mugging for the camera.
The screens displaying his weather map flash for an instant, returning to the two anchors just across the set, and Jim returns to his computers, collapsing into the grey rolling chair and sliding backwards across the slate grey concrete floor of the cubicle. Hands weathered by time grasp the grey desk firmly and he pushes himself forward, stomach recoiling against the edge. He types slowly, hunting and pecking for the letters as he uploads them onto the screen, commanding the machine to display numerous graphs and charts and maps filled with scientific mumbo-jumbo that a short fifteen years ago would have been overwhelmingly illegible. Now, they were hopelessly benign.
Massaging his temples as he scoots awkwardly away from the screen, he consults the clock ticking on the desk---thirteen minutes until he was due back onstage---next to the picture of his smiling wife and sons. He allows a grin to escape, left hand still working his headache into hopeful oblivion, right hand tenderly cradling the frame of the picture. This picture was taken nearly ten years ago: October 27, 1981. It was nearly the same time as those misfired firework celebrations that went off Halloween night, no doubt the work of some teenage hooligans hopped up on Darwin knows what.
The ticking clock brings him back to the present without much difficulty, and the ever-present cold front pervades his mind once more. Pain dribbling into every nook and cranny of his cranium, he returns his attention to his notes underneath his arm. He grimaces as he examines them, left hand still working soothing counterclockwise rhythms, right hand holding the pencil-attacked notebook page aloft. All signs point to rain, the paraphrased notes read, but how much is an uncertainty, an unidentifiable variable that sticks out like an unbalanced resultant in a combustion reaction.
"Five minutes, Jim," warns one of the production assistants---George? James? Jack?---and he nods it off curtly. One last glance at a possible storm track on the computer shows significant rainfall for most of the viewing area, but as he rises from the rolling chair, he knows that he will err on the side of caution and tell the public what it wants to hear. Nobody in particular really roots for heavy downpours, so why make them prepare for something that may never happen? No, Jim decides, it is best to let them be surprised by the extravagant rainfall, if it does indeed occur.
Pajama pants swish together as he strides onto the set---the audience only needs to see him from the waist up, after all---and he straightens his tie, waiting for the buck to be passed to him. Just three more minutes, and he would tell them not to worry about the approaching front, that it would be pass just as quickly as it came and all that would result would be a passing mist to---what was it, again---keep the begonias fresh. Best to keep the flower reference consistent, he figures.
As he runs through his forecasted temperatures for the next week in his mind, he can't help but wonder why his headache keeps pounding harder and harder. Aspirin just aren't what they used to be these days.
"And now, meteorologist Jim McGuffin with the weather report. How's the week shaping up, Jim?" Ted offers, and as the camera screens flash to him, the teleprompter provides him with the words he crafted himself, born of the very brain that now seems to throb with every thought that crosses it. He opens his mouth to speak, and his vision blurs so much that the teleprompter's tiny font becomes just as illegible as the charts and graphs and maps on his computer screen would be to his eighteen-year-old self.
"It looks like there's a little rain coming our way, but not much, Ted," he begins, and his head explodes, one hundred tiny needles pushing into the nerve receptors of his brain, forcing each of them to submit messages of pain over and over again. He barely makes it through the weather report with a smile, handing his responsibility over to the sponsors. The public's selective hearing triumphs over truth again.