Tony walked up to Maximillian’s house and saw Maximillian sitting in his front window, staring with a gloomy expression at the steady, persistent rain. Tony wore a yellow rain jacket, rubber rain boots and had the look of a kid who jumped in every puddle.
Tony gestured to Maximillian to come out and play in the rain. Maximillian shook his head.
“Come on, Max, let’s have some fun!” Tony yelled so Maximillian could hear him inside.
Maximillian yelled back, fogging up the window pane as he did so. “No, I’m not coming out. I hate the rain!”
“Well, we could do something inside,” Tony yelled back. I’m not sure why Maximillian’s family allowed the yelling through the window.
“No, I hate the rain,” Maximillian yelled. He was barely visible through the fogged-up window.
“How would doing something inside have anything to do with the rain?”
Maximillian began a monologue. “I want the rain to go away. If we do something, then I have a story about how the rain was fun in some way. I don’t want the rain to have any stories. I want it to not exist. If I don’t do anything, then the rain does not win.”
Tony thought about this for a minute. “But now, if I go home, my mom will ask why we didn’t play. And I’ll say because of the rain. Isn’t that a story for the rain?”
Maximillian yelled in exasperation, and his figure disappeared from the window.
A few moments later, Maximillian opened the front door in his rain gear to greet Tony. “If the rain’s going to win, we might as well eat cookies.”