The Weatherman

PROLOGUE They say that you should never start a story by talking about the weather. Well, I’m going to. Not because I love talking about the weather, but because it’s relevant. It is on this planet, in this colony, anyway. Here, we don’t need weather forecasts. Sector A is always sunny, Sector B always icy cold, it always rains in Sector C, and in my sector, Sector D? Fog – very thick fog. We hate it. But we have no choice. The Colony Executive prohibits us from moving from sector to sector. Even if we could move, we can’t afford to live anywhere else. Most of us would love to move to one of the other sectors, especially Sector A. We’ve heard it’s really beautiful there. But it is what it is. Who am I? My name is Oositellyi. That’s how you say it. It looks much cooler written down. U-Č-I-T-E-L-J... Učitelj. Difficult to say? Call me Ooze – everybody else does. My name means 'teacher'. Pretty apt really, 'cos that's what I do. I'm a teacher. My ancestors – back on Terra (or, as some of you may know it, Earth) – were Croatian. In fact, most of us in Sector D are of Croatian descent. Our ancestors came here as refugees during the Great European War of 2353. Croatia got hardest hit. A tragedy really; they say it was a beautiful country. Anyway, those that could get out, did get out and made their way to this hell-hole. I'm being disingenuous. The planet's not a hell-hole. I hear there are some parts that are quite beautiful. Especially in Sector A, where the richest people live. Sector B too, if you like snow. So I've heard, anyway. Never been there. Sector C would probably be nice too – if it ever stopped raining. And as for Sector D? Nobody wants to come here. And I can't say I blame them. There are a few Dirties – that's what residents of the other sectors call us – who get to go to the other sectors. We hook up with workers from Sector C, the Shoovers, sometimes, when there's drainage problems in Sectors A or B. Shoovers are great at solving drainage problems – well, they would be, wouldn't they? You need good drainage when it rains all the time. But they don't like doing the dirty work. Not when we Dirties are around to do it for them. So they come into our sector sometimes, recruiting manual labour. Everybody wants to go with them, to take a breather from this b****y fog, but that costs money. Oh – did I not say? They don't pay us; they consider that giving us a break from Sector D is payment enough, if declogging sewers can be called a break. Yet still they get plenty of volunteers. Volunteers who are actually willing to pay them, just for a change of scenery. I don't volunteer. As I said, I'm a teacher. I'm considered too valuable here to go gallivanting off digging holes and unblocking shitty sewers. I wouldn't want to do it. Anyway, I wouldn't get past the first checkpoint. One look at my hands and they could tell I'm not a manual labourer. Do you know, I've never seen the suns? Sure, I've seen a couple of fuzzy orange balls in the sky, I mean – they're up there. I know that. They haven't gone anywhere. It's just that this fog is so b****y thick that we Dirties don't get a proper look at them. People who come back from the other sectors – well, A and B – talk about clear blue skies and two beautiful orange glowing orbs that you can't even look at with your n***d eye, for fear of burning out your retinas. Here, in Sector D, you can look at them all day long and nothing would happen to your eyes. I know people who've tried it. They can still see all right. Well, they can see about ten metres in front of their noses anyway. That's our limitation. Ten b****y metres. That's why it takes so long to get anywhere. Transport has to travel slowly, otherwise this place would look like a wrecking yard. That's why we have to go everywhere by public transport. The buses are all fitted out with GPS transponders so they can move around without crashing into each other. No private vehicles in Sector D – it's not allowed. It would cost too much anyway. We're the bottom of the heap; we don't have money to throw around on luxuries like private vehicles. It's walking or the bus for us. Money is for buying food and clothes, and – if we can save enough cash – stuff for our houses. But the transport is free – that's one bonus. They had to provide free transport really; keeps the natives from getting restless. Housing is free too. It's pre-fabricated and all the houses look the same from the outside. People do try to add a bit of variety by putting different coloured curtains at the windows but you have to be really close to the house to see them properly, so it's a waste of money really. Inside the houses, you can do pretty much what you want. The walls can be any colour you like (like the curtains) but there are only six colours to choose from – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white. And there are no differing shades of those colours. There are only six choices of furniture items too. I've heard that in Sector A they have hundreds of items of furniture to choose from and hundreds of colours. That's probably too many really. There is such a thing as being spoiled for choice. I mean, if – say – you want to buy a sofa and there's a whole palette of colours to choose from, not to mention so many different materials, how are you supposed to choose? It's too many choices. But six is too few, too. Even ten would be better than six. Anyway. Back to the story. My story. You don't need to know everything about this place. Just the basics. You know, to get a feel for the place.