A Few Words about the Weather by Kathryn Kulpa

1. Cloud Cover
“You’re pretty cumulus,” said my boyfriend, the meteorologist, and I asked if he meant I was heavenly.

2. Cumulonimbus
“Puffy,” he said, “like a cotton ball.”

3. Atmospheric Pressure
All day I’d been grafting orange blossoms onto wild raspberry canes and picking ticks off the dog and trying to mop sweat off my brow with the hobo-tied edges of my rolled-up, red-plaid shirt.

4. Condensation
Still, that sweat kept trickling down my collarbone, forming a tributary somewhere at the bottom of my bra. LOW-LYING AREAS WILL FLOOD FIRST.

5. Wet Bulb Temperature
I was flashing, hotly. Boiling. Blistering.

6. Ventilation Index
My drag queen name was Perri Menopausal.

7. Heat Lightning
The weather map of my disposition was bright red.

8. Red Flag Warning
He could have read that map. Seen the HEAT ADVISORY. Seen the FAST-MOVING STORM warning. He could have read that map, but he didn’t.

9. Squall
All of which is to say I was in a prickly mood, so I hauled off and hit him with the pointy end of a cactus.

10. Extended Forecast
Now I wander, an isolated thunderstorm in an empty sky. Nothing for lightning to strike but a bullet-pocked road sign shaped like a scallop. I’m on the highway to hell—getting closer all the time.

Kathryn Kulpa is a writer and librarian with work in Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions. Find her stories in Flash Frog, Ghost Parachute, HAD, Matchbook, Milk Candy Review, and Your Impossible Voice. She was a 2025 writer-in-residence at Linden Place in Bristol, RI.