Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

Arthur spent all Sunday rummaging through the bins behind that pub in Taunton and found nothing, no lottery tickets, no phone numbers, Arthur tried everything to get to Fenchurch, everything he tried The more you have, the faster your weeks go by. He cursed himself furiously, cursed fate, cursed the world and the damn weather.In his grief and anger, he even went and sat for a while in the cafe of the same highway gas station he had been to before he met her. "It's the drizzle that makes me so depressed." "Please don't talk about Drift." Arthur interrupted. "If the drizzle stops, I won't talk about it."

"look……" "But let me tell you what happens when the drizzle stops, okay?" "not good." "Non-stop." "what?" "It will continue." Arthur looked over the rim of his coffee cup to the terrifying world outside.He felt that this was a completely meaningless world, and he was also driven by superstition rather than logic in this world.However, as if to prove to him that some coincidences still happen, he met the same driver he had seen last time. The harder Arthur tried to ignore him, the more he was drawn into the vortex of the truck driver's exasperating conversation.

"I think," said Arthur expressly, and secretly cursing himself for saying it, "that it's raining less." "what!" Arthur just shrugged.It's time for him to go.This is the thing to do, the time to go. "The rain never stops!" growled the truck driver.He bangs the table, causing the tea to spill, and for a moment it looks like he's pissed off. You can't just walk away with words like that. "Of course the rain will stop," said Arthur.It's not an elegant retort, but someone has to say it. "It's been... raining..." the man growled, banging the table again.

Arthur shook his head. "It's stupid to say it's been raining all the time," he said. "Stupid? How stupid? If it's been raining all the time, why am I stupid when I say it's been raining?" "It didn't rain yesterday." "Darlington is off." Arthur stopped talking cautiously. "Did you want to ask me where I was yesterday?" said the man, "Huh?" "No," said Arthur. "But I think you can guess." "yes?" "Those that begin with the word 'Da'." "yes?"

"It's raining over there, I tell you." "You shouldn't be sitting here, man," said a stranger in overalls cheerfully to Arthur as he passed by. "This place is Thundercloud Corner. A seat reserved for the 'it's always raining on my head' gentleman. Every roadside bar has a seat reserved for him from here to sunny Denmark .I suggest you stay away from him. We all do. How is it, Rob? Busy? Are you still raining? Haha!" He stepped forward and told a Britt Eckland joke to a man at a nearby table. "See, none of these bastards have been kind to me," said Rob McKenna. It's true!"

Arthur frowned. "Like my wife," said the sole proprietor and driver of McKenna 24/7, "she called me bullshit and made a fuss. But—" He paused to get Arthur's attention, Eyes glowing fiercely, "Every time I call to say I'm almost home, she puts all my clothes in." He waved his coffee spoon, "What do you say?" "if that is the case……" "I have a notebook," he went on, "I have a notebook. A diary. I've been writing for fifteen years. Every day, every place I've been. The weather. It's all the same." He growled, "Damn it! England, Scotland, Wales, everywhere I've been. The whole continent, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Yugoslavia. I've taken notes and charted it all .Even when I go to my brother's house." He added, "In Seattle."

"In that case," said Arthur, and finally decided to leave, "perhaps you'd better show this diary to someone else." "I will," said Rob McKenna. He really did.