The class on Weather I am grudgingly taking to fulfill a science requirement has a mandatory weather forecasting competition on its web site. Every day you try to predict the next day’s weather using any means necessary. As of today I have climbed to the first-place position using a combination of mathematics, intuition, ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope.

I had thought my enemies would do everything in their power to stop me from winning this little game. Perhaps they are, and their powers are simply more limited than I initially esteemed them. Yet I must not grow cocky, for I know that they would see me hang before they admit defeat. How can I ever feel safe again?

Alas, heavy is the head.

One thing I can be sure of is that somewhere there is a room with an unusual key, and inside this room my foes cluster in gaslight shadows plotting how I might be toppled from my catbird seat.

And I cannot ignore the voice that tells me this might all be part of their plan, to let me think victory is mine. What if they’re watching me? They could be anwhere. The first mouse gets the trap, the second mouse gets the cheese, is that it? Is that their game, are those the rules? The finishing line made out of piano wire, and I’m supposed to cross it first?

I can see them now, awarding the laurel crown to my severed head, stuffed with straw and smiling like a lobotomy case, forever their trophy, and my corpse the pedestal on which they stand and bow. They’ll hang me on a wall and pass my guts around to be felt and feasted on by all those mongrel dogs who yap and soak themselves waiting for their turn. Don’t you see? My enemies are legion! LEGION! Why can’t you see that?!

But I won’t let them do it. They’ll soon see once and for all time who is the most accurate 1-day weather forecaster in the introductory atmospheric sciences class for spring quarter 2003 at the University of Washington: Me. I’ll destroy them all. I’ll devote my life and all my soul if necessary to making sure they suffer for their conspiracies, for their betrayals. I swear this day, I’ll not only defeat them in this competition, I will break their spirits.