The Weather is Fine

An imaginative composed by Oliver (Year 12 Advanced)

“Fine” was a word you could wear like armour. You could say it with glassy eyes and blood beneath your fingernails, and the system would still call you emotionally regulated. 

The council didn’t outlaw sadness. Rather, they extracted it. Packed away old language into locked, metallic cabinets filed under “emotional inefficiencies,” to collect dust and fade into the basement of collective memories. This is called progress. Now, we speak in sanctioned fragments.

Good. Bad. Fantastic.

Fine. Ungood. Plusgood.

Nothing else. No adjectives. No nuance. No room for weather.

Only calibration.

I work in the Ministry of Expression – fifth floor, east wing, filtered lighting and filtered thoughts.

Today, I’m assigned to correct a love letter from 2042. The original reading:

“Even your silence sings to me.”

My cursor blinks. I exhale, typing:

“Your verbal absence is registered as comfort.”

A green light bounces off my glasses—a green tick.

I pause, watching the words dull into the data, before finally fading into absolutely nothing. Somewhere behind me, a clock ticks. No one speaks in the office. We breathe evenly. We erase history in harmony. Yet, the silence doesn’t harmonise back.

Outside, the pavement gleams from the morning rinse cycle. The sky is always a government-approved sky blue. Harmless. The artificial grass is meticulously kept, with no signs of life hidden within the synthetic blades. Glass buildings reflect nothing but geometric shapes. Mirrors were deactivated after people were caught staring for too long, attempting to trace their outlines as if they were trying to remember something. 

Now, the mirrors show the forecast. 

☀️ Today’s predictions: clear and mild. 

The same prediction as the day before, and the days beforehand.

Slogans trail across the skyline: 

WORDS WOUND. HEAL WITH SILENCE. SAY LESS. LIVE MORE.

At home, I peel back the loose floorboard beneath my state-issued bed. My fingers locate the stitched spine of a notebook. The feeling of real paper. Fragile and disobedient. 

Adding to my entries, my wrist curves:

The ink bleeds slightly into the page. It’s not perfect. It’s not censored. It’s proof.

Every fortnight, on Thursday, I walk the white corridor until the sign “Evaluation” becomes less blurry.

Dr. Ivan welcomes me with a programmed upturn of his lips. His desk smells of eucalyptus, accompanied by eerie static.

“Your verbal patterns indicate symptoms of mild friction,” he says.

“You’re to be prescribed a serotonin recalibration.”

I nod. He ticks a box. Rolling up my left sleeve, previous dots are found scattered around blue veins. I press my fingertips against the underside of the chair, grounding myself in the piercing sensation. 

The walls hum softly. 

I wake to my mirror’s weather report: 

☁️ Today’s predictions: calm. 

The forecast ironically feels like a warning. I dress in a grey tunic with grey boots. Nothing sharp, nothing loud. 

Instead of work, I’m pulled towards the Synthactic Archives – hidden beneath the old library. I scan my Ministry-appointed entry chip. Glass cabinets line the walls. Inside them, outlawed words rest like dug-up fossils: belonging, tender, ache, grace. 

I run a finger along the plaque that reads “Hope” in bold letters. The letters are soft from wear and aged with dust. A familiar child idles nearby, young, possibly seven, in grey boots. He points to a word behind the glass, asking, 

“What’s this one?”

“Melancholy”

“What does that mean?”

I pause. 

“It’s the sound that rain makes on a roof that you once felt safe beneath.”

He frowns. “That’s not a definition.”

“No,” I say. “It’s a memory.”

⛈️ Today’s predictions: Chance of storms.

The storm hits that evening. Real rain. Raw and unfiltered.

I step onto the balcony barefoot, clothes clinging desperately to my skin. Lightning splits the skyline, the sky is an unsanctioned grey, thunder illuminating the cracks in the concrete. Below, the streets are deserted, just the weather and pavement

No broadcasts. No slogans. Just the sound of everything unravelling. 

I lift my face towards the sky and whisper a word never spoken before:

“Hollow”

It catches in the air. Unmeasured. Uncorrected.

I take the final step, eyes closed.

And the sky doesn’t punish me.

Those once-unspoken words brand the sky.

It disappears quickly. But I feel free.

And sometimes, that’s “fine.”