They poured the camphor, the nitre, the chloride. They sealed it in brass and wax. The Admiralty had already called the glasses a thermometer with delusions of grandeur. The keepers corked this one anyway.

The Unweather is every forecast that never arrived — hail that was promised and never fell, a red sky that meant nothing. Denied the real sky, it learned to live in the last instrument that still claimed to tell the truth.