What's in a Name?

“Mum, look at this!” Jeremiah yelled from his seat on the window ledge.

“What?” his mum asked, darting in with a frazzled “I’m trying to get ready” look on her face.

“Balloons are falling from the sky.”

“For goodness’ sake, Jeremiah, I’m in a rush.”

“I’m not making it up, Mum. I promise, they are.”

His mum crossed the bedroom and perched next to him, looking at the sky. Sure enough, there were little Chinese lanterns falling from the sky.

“What date is it?” she asked.

“It’s the ninth of February. I only know because my teacher kept telling us yesterday. Chinese New Year is tomorrow.”

“Maybe that explains it,” his mum said, looking with uncertainty at the sheer number of lanterns dropping from the heavens.

“I wonder how they released so many,” she said.

Then her lips bunched as she took the last hurried gulp of her morning coffee. You could see the strain running through every sinew of her neck. Jeremiah could feel it too. His mum was in a high-pressured job, and it didn’t suit her well. She was constantly edgy, like she was waiting for an emergency alarm to sound at any second. Jeremiah was the exact opposite, much to her annoyance. He had all the time in the world to sit and look out the window, watching the activities of the garden’s goings-on. The birds, amongst other things, had always enchanted him.

“If you believe in magic, you’ll find it,” he thought - or something to that effect. He remembered hearing it in a book once, but he couldn’t remember the exact wording. He didn’t often read fiction with his mum; she was more into encyclopaedias and expanding knowledge that wasn’t plucked from the imagination. She was sensible. She wanted Jeremiah to grow up to be that way too. She was a single mother and she’d had a rough time. Even at the age of ten, he was all too aware of the difficulties she faced on a daily basis. He liked to remind her to smile, but she didn’t often have time for it.

“I like when you smile, Mum.”

“I’m too tired to smile,” she’d say, in an ironic tone, passing it off as a joke.

“Mum,” he called, as she turned away. “Maybe we should take an umbrella with us.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s going to rain,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“It’s raining lanterns.”

She rolled her eyes with mirth. Sometimes she wondered how she had produced a son with such a vivid imagination. She didn’t think she had an ounce of it. There was a time whenever she’d possessed it too, but it had just been such a long time since she’d allowed herself to access it that she’d entirely forgotten about it.

They descended the steps from their penthouse flat. Lucinda’s feet felt weary before they started their journey to school and to work. She didn’t feel like there was anything to be excited about in life. It was all so predictably dreary. Her son was like a glimmering gemstone in the dirt, but she couldn’t often take the time to notice that. She was so worn down with the worries of bills and adult concerns.

In the next building, lived a lady with the name of a goddess: Tempestas. Growing up, she hadn’t been fond of her name. Tempestas thought it was a burden for a child - carrying around such a weighty, unusual name. In her twenties, she was much more comfortable with it. She hadn’t met another Tempestas in her lifetime. If nothing else, she could claim that she was unique.

True to her name, Tempestas had always had a keen interest in the weather, especially in storms. She felt like her moods echoed the weather and she was deeply influenced by it. She used to just think she was sensitive, like some people get seasonal affective disorder. But she got a thrill from stormy weather. She started to dream about the weather she wanted, and strangely, whenever she parted her curtains to look out the window, it reflected what she’d seen in her mind’s eye. At first, she thought it was mere coincidence, but it had happened too many times for her to convince herself of that.

At first, she had dabbled in changing the weather: turning the sky from calm and clear to a tempestuous one, calling in rainclouds, inviting some fork lightening. On other days, she would opt for the sky to have a sunnier disposition. She could see it affected the moods of the people around her too. Everyone was friendlier on a sunny day. After some time, she started to get bored with her weather game. It was samey and she had tried out every combination that she could conceive of. She decided to try to do more: she wanted to make it rain objects and she wanted to turn the sky shades that no one had ever seen in it before. She wanted to tamper with what people considered to be possible in terms of weather. She was a poet, so she was always writing, alone in her room. She needed some sort of physical entertainment to break up the day.

She pictured snowflakes in July, and down they fell. She’d practise at night time so she could afford to make mistakes without people noticing them. Next, she tried confetti. It was light and easy to play around with, like snow with less disruption. She pulled it off. People that did see it just thought it had come from a nearby celebration, that the wind was carrying it to them. It cheered them up. She saw more and more smiles appear.

She’d seen a sad lady that lived in the neighbouring building. She was always leaving and returning at the same time every day, with her little boy in tow. He trailed along beside her, pointing at the sky while the mother appeared not to take any notice of it. Tempestas wanted to make her smile, to grab her attention. She looked world-weary and she knew she needed something to uplift her.

The idea for the Chinese lanterns came because of the Chinese New Year. She knew they could be explained away by people that didn’t want to recognise the strange weather they’d been having lately. She could practise with them while she honed her skill. She produced one lantern at a time, and then another, until there were thousands in the sky. She saw the sad lady emerge from the building, hesitating on the doorstep, opening her umbrella. At first, she thought she was going to just fend them off. Then, after they’d taken a few steps, the lady retracted her umbrella and let it drop by her side. She looked up at the multicoloured rainfall, turned her palm upwards to catch it - and then, she most definitely smiled.