The city’s amber glow warmed the grey blanket of rain clouds overhead; beyond them were the stars, and like the miserable souls beneath, their ambition had been suffocated at birth. A news report crackled over the bus station’s TV screen: apparently it was the dullest, rainiest, cloudiest, miserablest day on record. Again. The aging of Ayenee Capital City was set to the music of drizzle: dreary decade after dreary decade.

Time just kept on.

The town was always damp, but never awash. The citizenry suffered a kind of uncomfortable moistness that seeped into the bones and left the door open for the flu to come sneaking in after it.

The rain just wouldn’t quit.