Forecast by Janette Turner Hospital

numbness overwhelms Nelson, as though of hemlock I had drunk , he murmurs aloud. He has begun to read poetry and falls asleep dreaming Keats. In insubstantial air, he inscribes lines both above and below the portrait. Being too happy, he writes with his index finger, in thine happiness.
    The lines flutter about his pillow like little birds.
    He has researched the portrait online.
    Apparently the painting is famous, and the Beatrice referred to by its title is famous, and apparently the painter – though long dead – was also famous and was a great admirer of Keats and was awash in grief and guilt when he painted his beautiful dead wife whom he had so often betrayed.
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    Nelson works from home, which is his studio apartment on the twelfth floor of a high-rise in the city. He has a title: Public Relations Associate.He has a business card. The card attests to his affiliation with Wholesome Food & Beverage whose motto is: We taste so good, you don’t notice we’re good for you. A year ago he was a software designer for the very company that pushed Wholesome’s stock through the roof. He is, in fact, the creator of Wholesome’s interactive website, and corporate champagne has been fizzed and spilled in his honor. A YouTube video shows Paul, the CEO of Nelson’s former company – ExecuTech – proposing the toast: To the brainiac who kicked our client’s stock through the goal posts, and our stock along with it. To winning the World Cup of Interactive Graphic Ads for our team.
    A great deal of champagne was drunk. There was heavy-metal music and dancing. There was a drum beat so insistent, so primitive, that the seismic detectors in the building howled like wolves. Paul himself was seen to dance on the desktops with a woman who was not his wife and who did not work for the company. They were quite something to behold, Paul and this woman, fancy-footing between laptops and printers, first position, second position, Kama Sutra tangles of the limbs. The woman wore a long silky green thing that clung like plastic wrap. From time to time, couples disappeared into the photocopying room which had a lettered sign on the door: Sophie, our office administrator, is available forreproduction only between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on weekday afternoons.
    Nelson watched as Paul floated down from a desktop (from Nelson ’s desktop) like a man hung by guy ropes from a glider. Office thermals and the inevitable air currents – strictly hierarchical – took Paul to the photocopying room. ‘That would be scanned,’ Nelson said bitterly to someone, but his listener, none too familiar with Shakespeare, did not get it. The woman was coiled around Paul like a shimmering emerald snake, her red hair tumbling over her shoulders.
    â€˜She’s going to regret that,’ Sophie, the office administrator, whispered to Nelson. ‘Paul’s an animal, especially when he’s been drinking.’
    Paul has animal magnetism, Nelson certainly concurs with that. He doesn’t hate Paul or blame him. It is more that his loneliness feels so acute in Paul’s presence. ‘He only has to lift his little finger,’ he said, ‘and women come running.’
    â€˜Then they run in the other direction,’ Sophie told him. ‘Or try to. Paul likes to beat around the bush, so to speak.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    Sophie raised her eyebrows. ‘I thought I’d been a bit too blunt.’
    â€˜I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’
    â€˜Nelson, you’re sweet.’ Sophie stroked his hairas though he were a child. She found his innocence endearing. ‘To be even blunter. Paul doesn’t like to let anyone go and things can get ugly.’
    Nelson stared at her.
    â€˜Believe me, I know,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s why I start a new job on Monday. Haven’t told anyone yet and I’m not telling anyone where I’m going, not even you,