Shepherd Take Warning

A man in a yellow coat walked the stacks of the library. Back and forth, he stalked and ran his finger along the spines making a quiet little rattle on the metal shelves. He looked for nothing, wanted little, and let his eyes search.

"Anything I can help you with?" a page shelving some cookbooks said.

He smiled and said no in a low voice like thunder a mile off.

"Sorry," a teenager in the fiction section said, moving aside to let the man in the yellow coat pass.

The man nodded and passed. The teenager smelled cinnamon and clover.

A librarian saw the man pass the window in front of the backroom. The librarian was binding a book that had been torn by a dog. He had already cleaned off the piss that the dog had left. No stains, just a few sprinkles on the book jacket. At least that's what the patron had said his dog did. The librarian had said thank you and taken the bag with the torn book with a little urine on it. No fee. The dog owner could not afford the title, a nonfiction reference book about training Doberman pinchers, and the librarian could not be bothered. As the man in the yellow coat passed the window, though, the librarian was bothered.

"I think something's wrong," the librarian binding the book said to the other librarian.

The other librarian had her email displayed on the computer and swiped her phone. She had been on a dating app looking for someone to spend Saturday night with. She paid extra for the app to show her matches that liked movies and to hide anyone over five foot, five inches. Man or woman, she liked them short. She asked what the book binder meant.

"Just a feeling. Saw this guy," the binder said.

Swiper looked up. "What kind of guy?"

"Guy in a yellow coat."

"Like, he might open the yellow coat?"

"No, not that kind of coat. And it was open. I think he had a t-shirt and jeans under it."

Swiper looked back at her phone to see Jeremy, five foot three inches of accountant. She swiped. "Want me to take a look?"

Binder, standing now, said, "I'll check it out."

He found the man in the yellow coat on the second floor, staring out a window over the tire market next door and the cemetery beyond. He pretended to straighten some shelves, but the man turned a little and said, "Rain."

Binder looked out, not seeing a drop. "I think it might tonight."

"It will," the man said. "It always rains when the sky is red like it was this morning. You know that?"

"I don't think so."

"Red sky at night is a shepherd's delight. Red sky in morning, a shepherd take warning." He said it sing-song, like a nursery rhyme or some tune he had almost forgotten. "It's true. Works how the sun shines through the clouds, those coming and going bouncing all that dust and water around and making the color turn. It's in the Bible."

"Huh," Binder said.

"It's also a nice little rhyme, don't you think?"

"My grandpa used to say it."

"Yeah."

They stood looking out over the tire place and the setting sun. It all went from yellow to blue and right at the end there was a flash of green on the horizon.

"Whoa, did you-" Binder said and turned but the man in the yellow coat had gone.

Rain began to drip and tap on the window. It went slow at first then harder, the drops fat and heavy. Binder went to the backroom feeling outside himself. Something inside had become green and dark.

Swiper worked on her email, the phone next to the keyboard. She typed as he entered, finishing and looking back at Binder. "You okay?"

"Red sky in the morning," he said.

Swiper said, "Sailor take warning."

"I always heard shepherd."

Swiper felt something for him then. Her coworker had a sadness, a deep empty look that made her want to wrap him up in her arms and hold him. Let him cry and hold on to her while she stroked his head and called him "sweet boy." She told herself it was the rain, making her want to feel cuddly and cozy, as he went back to fixing the book and she went to see if the page needed help with the cookbooks before they closed.