The Rain Globe

It sat ignored on a high dusty shelf for years, behind a bookend that looked liked a dachshund's tail end and a book on sea glass missing its dust jacket. When Trinh gingerly stood on the top step of the least-wobbly stepladder that rainy Saturday morning, I thought her quick yelp signaled a discovery of more spiders, not the defining moment for millions of lives.

“You remember this?” she demanded as she scrambled around the cash register. I glanced at her outstretched hand quickly before smiling back at the customer I was handing change to. I wished the woman who had bought the mismatched tea cups a good day, then turned to Trinh.

“No, I don't,” I hissed. “Why would I?”

“No price,” she said.

I looked at the round object in Trinh's fist. It was a glass orb, about the size of softball, deep azure and green. It took me a minute to figure out what it was.

“Is that a globe of some sort?” I asked.

Trinh looked at it. “I think so,” She said, “but I don't remember it. I check in everything this store for last fifteen years. You must have done this.”

I took the globe from her. Despite having been clenched in Trinh's hand, the glass was icy to the touch. For a moment, I thought my eyes were swimming as the colors of the globe undulated softly.

“It's got sort of of liquid in it!” I marveled. Trinh bent for a closer look.

“You think it's one of those toys that answers questions?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “A Magic 8 Ball would have been in the kids' section, not over where you were when you found it. This is a paperweight or something.”

“It has no price,” Trinh repeated. “How many times I tell you, things must be priced!”

I sighed and looked around the thrift store. Since I had started working here, the battle over the faded orange price tags had never ended. Trinh had ruled the checking in of donations for years before I showed up, fresh out of school and luck. She checked and rechecked every last item I handled, and blamed each customer's assertion that the price tag had “fallen off” on my apparent inability to do my job correctly.

“Trinh, I swear to you, I've never seen this before,” I said. “You won't let me touch that step stool, right? So how I could have put this up there?”

Trinh narrowed her eyes as she thought. “Maybe your lazy predecessor did it,” she grumbled finally. “It was dusty.”

“Maybe the price tag is still up on the shelf,” I offered. “It's old, so the glue could have failed over time.”

The next thing I knew, I was wobbling on top of the stepladder, reaching back in the recesses of the top shelf. I squinted into the dusty shelf.

“You see it?” Trinh called up.

I was about to climb down in defeat when I caught sight of a faded card peeking out from under a partially-melted candle at the back. I carefully pried it from under the wax and carried it down to Trinh. She took the card and squinted at it.

“This is no price tag,” she frowned, “and I don't read gibberish.”

“Gibberish?” I asked. Trinh handed the card back to me. The paper, though faded, felt silky smooth. It was the size of a modern business card, only the script appeared to have been handwritten in a firm yet ornate hand.

“It looks like Latin to me,” I said. “'Qui autem quaerit iter pluvia amplius quam mundi.'”

Trinh rolled her eyes. “How do you know Latin?” she smirked.

“Music major,” I said. “I don't speak it, but I can sound it out.”

“Okay, college girl, what does it say?”

I pulled out my phone and hit Google Translate.

“According to this, it means, 'He who seeks the rain shall travel no farther than the world.' Whatever that means,” I shrugged.

“So no price,” Trinh said. “I look it up on eBay. We'll get a price on it that way.”

I went back to my station at the cash register and looked outside. The rain continued its steady assault, driving away our usual Saturday crowd. I thought about the weird stuff this shop sold, all donated, never seeming to be worth much. Still, there seemed to be a market for used mortars and bizarre candlesticks. Trinh and I were the only paid employees; all the other staff were volunteers from the organization that ran this place as a scholarship fund raiser. Once again, it struck me as odd the volunteers never talked about themselves or the nature of their sorority.

After a while, Trinh came back from the stockroom, shaking her head. “Nothing like this anywhere,” she fretted. “Not on eBay, not on Amazon. This makes no sense.”

I took the globe from the basket behind the counter where Trinh had stowed it. “I think that, whatever it is, it's not in working order. Look how the liquid doesn't move all over it.”

Trinh shook her head. “No, I say trick of the light. Get rid of it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don't like that thing,” Trinh complained. “Here, I give it to you. You like it, you get it out of the store.”

As I took it out to the car after my shift, I slipped on a slick spot and the globe bounced out of my hand. To my surprise it did not shatter, though a closer inspection told me that a crack had formed over most of the western United States. The liquid pooled away from the damage, and would not flow back.

The rain stopped that evening. It hasn't rained much since.

Word count: 979