I. Rain

The sidewalk was so saturated with rainwater that it had nowhere to go but into the steady river that flowed along the gutter, rushing downhill as quickly as the laws of physics would allow, gushing into the storm drain. Rain had been falling in the city continuously for three days, part of the wettest season it had been since the early 1900s. Cars were regularly backed up during rush hour traffic, and the usual shorts-and-sandals were replaced by umbrellas and galoshes.

The musty, humid scent of rain and earth permeated through the city, and in the background the subtle aroma of flowers wafted above the smell of wet concrete. Clouds hung low and seemed low enough to touch. The vibrant green of the grasses and trees popped out of the otherwise grey environment, seemingly out of place in an urban setting.

Melissa rushed home from a horrible day at work, pedaling as quickly as she could, evading doors swinging open, swerving cars, and inattentive pedestrians. She hated this part of her day. She hated Thursdays in general -- her ninth birthday was a Thursday, and it seemed to have happened as such that her own mother forgot about it.

The rain continued to come down in pails as Melissa got to her apartment building, a two-story beige remnant of the 1920s, essentially a large house converted to accomodate nine rooms of tenants. She ran inside, bike in tow, and trudged up the stairs past her dimly-lit hallway to Apartment 2C.

Inside the apartment building there was a flurry of activity; on the first floor, the tenants were organizing a friendly game of Thursday night poker, while the upstairs tenants were minding themselves as they watched reruns of Friends and ate microwave dinners. In Apartment 2C, someone had left the window open, causing a giant puddle to form across the hardwood floor.

Melissa opened the door to find her entire living room soaked. She surveyed her space, thinking, and sighed.

"It's not toobad," she said out loud.

She closed the window, avoiding the puddle that was now being soaked up by three rolls of paper towels. How could I forget to close the freaking window, she thought, when it was raining the whole day?

She soon realized that she hadn't left the window open.

Melissa then ran into her bedroom and searched her nightstand. "My ring," she said to herself, "where the hell is my ring?"

She found the ring case and opened it. Inside the small, velvet box was a note in lieu of a ring; she took it out and read it.

"You want your ring bacK?" was all the note said.

Melissa's face flushed with anger. "Hell yes, I want my ring back."