It’s raining, and the living room ceiling drips, drips, and drips because the husband passed up on that free roof inspection and maybe he was afraid of the problems it might reveal, and his father-in-law now lives in the basement, and the husband and the wife keep finding blood-blotted tissues that look like Rorschach tests in the wastebasket, and the father-in-law won’t go to the doctor no matter how much the husband and the wife beg him, and the rain gets louder and louder, and the hole in the ceiling gets larger and larger.
It’s windy, and the family keeps sweeping the dirt, sand, and leaves under the davenport in the living room, and the daughter has been throwing away the sandwiches that the mother packs for her school lunch, and she says “It was delicious” when the mother asks if she enjoyed it, and the wind intensifies, and the hole in the ceiling expands, and the bills never blow away but the shingles rip off one by one, and the windows rattle, and the house sways back and forth until the family gets vertigo.
It’s snowing, and the roof is beginning to cave in, and the husband still hasn’t told the wife that he got laid off from work, and the wife keeps telling the husband that he looks so handsome in hats, but the husband starts to wonder if that means the wife is embarrassed of the increasingly prominent bald spot on his head, and the snow keeps pounding on the roof, and the roof collapses and a colossal mound of snow lands in the middle of the living room floor, and the mound doesn’t melt—it just keeps accumulating more and more snow, and the living room becomes a blinding blizzard of white, and the husband thinks to himself that umbrella insurance would be great to have for a time like this.
Zach Keali’i Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in Raritan Quarterly, Reed Magazine, The Coachella Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Another Chicago Magazine. He has published the chapbook Tiny Universes (Selcouth Station Press). He lives with his wonderful wife, Kelly, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Artwork by Anthony Guardado (@vinoburrito on all socials), a Bay Area illustrator known best for his fan works. He enjoys vending at art events, building plastic models, and general tomfoolery.