Into Every Life

"What the hell is going on down there?" I demanded.  My correspondent wasn't listening.  A raging tide of water was swirling around her legs as she stood on her desk making increasing futile attempts to pluck one of her children from the furious torrent gushing through her house. 

"Has a pipe burst?  Do you even have plumbing?"

"It's raining you twat," shrieked my correspondent giving up on her child and settling for trying to keep her laptop above water.  It seemed to be doing a little more than just raining.  Through the window behind her I caught a brief glimpse of cars, cows and the occasional badly designed building floating by on what looked like a migratory lake.  When water started trickling out of my own computer screen I severed the connection and contacted my Belarusian tech support.

"You guys will never believe what's happening in Tasmania," I said breathlessly.

"It's pissing down with rain and thousands of people are in danger of drowning or homelessness?"

"Well yes," I muttered.  "Has it made the news in Minsk?"

"We're the only people in Minsk who have even heard of Tasmania.  We have other sources of information."

Normally I would accept that at face value because it doesn't do to irritate people who have access to weaponised smallpox and their own super soldier program.  This time however I noticed a more than usually shifty look my teams eye.  They appeared almost embarrassed.

"Guys, what have you done?"  They shuffled their feet a little and then decided to confess all.

"Ever heard of Tlaloc?"

"The Aztec god of rain?  In the top ten Most Worshipped list for seven years straight in the 1490s.  Of course I've heard of Tlaloc, who the hell hasn't?"  My tech support acknowledged this point and carried on.

“Did you know there are certain rituals the Aztecs performed to please Tlaloc and make it rain?”

“Oh dear god.  Guys, you didn’t, did you?”  They nodded shame faced.  I shook my head in despair.  One thing I had learnt rather painfully is that you can do as many deals with the Devil as you like but when you start messing about with gods you’re in all sorts of trouble.  The thing is gods are just as dangerous and intolerant as the Devil but they lack his sense of humour.

“It was late, we were drunk.  I don’t mean going into the office in the morning drunk, properly drunk.”

"Well that's great, my nation's southern state is underwater because you guys had a Central American themed office party and the last time I saw my correspondent she was dog paddling down the main street."

"We can fix this," they offered.  "There's this Finnish goddess who owes us a favour..."

"Not her!" I shrieked.  "Hobart may be under twenty feet of water but I can't imagine it would be improved if the water was frozen solid.  Besides, she never returns my calls."

"We know, that favour she owes us.  She asked to see your browser history."

"Great so, apart from drowning Tasmania and ruining my social life have you been up to anything else lately."

"Nothing you haven't seen in the news.  So what do we do about Tasmania?"

"Oh leave it, the water will run off eventually and if I know them they're probably already building a hydro electric station in the middle of the city."  They went to sign off but a thought suddenly occurred to me.  "Just a minute as I recall, the ritual to Tlaloc asking for rain required a human sacrifice and, on a not entirely unrelated topic, what happened to your work experience guy?"