19 January 2027
Tuesday. I have been reading the weather in other cities, which I am told is unhealthy.
In Brisbane, in summer, the sky does this every afternoon for nothing. Great towering clouds. Lightning in sheets. Thunder that rattles the cutlery. Somewhere up there, I am certain, a scientist is sitting on a verandah with a cup of tea, wasting all of it.
The company says it means to open in the middle of Brisbane in the first half of this year, and that I am to set up a laboratory there. It has not said where, or exactly when, and when I asked, it gave me the look it gives me when I ask for more thunder. I have begun packing anyway. One cannot pack a storm, but one can pack the jars.
Here, meanwhile, my storm keeps its appointments. It arrives with the assistants and moves on an hour later, and the clock in the corner counts it out. When the last strike passes, the experiment is over. The Subject is woken in time, or he is not. That is the rule of the sky.
In the margin: He has packed three jars and the kettle. He has not packed me. I have checked twice. I would like a verandah.
— V. Frankenstein
