The Fourth-Floor Precipitate

A weekly bulletin from Apartment 4-C, 1118 Linden Avenue, distributed door-to-door without prior invitation.

Vol. XXIV · No. 47 Edited by the Tenants' Committee for Indoor Precipitation Concerns One issue, one cent. Suitable for lining shoes.

The Cloud Is, As Always, In Residence.

Readers familiar with this publication will require no introduction to the small cloud presently occupying the southeast corner of the front room of Apartment 4-C. For the benefit of new tenants, two paragraphs of context are provided below; longtime subscribers are welcome to skip ahead to the feeding tray, which is to the right of this column and which, as always, awaits offerings.

The cloud is approximately the size of a large grapefruit. It has been observed continuously since the morning of March 17, 1996, with the exception of a four-day absence in October of 1999 that the Committee has, after several efforts, elected not to investigate further. It is generally peaceable. It produces, on average, two tablespoons of cool water per week, which the editorial staff collects in a Pyrex saucer and uses to water the philodendron in the hallway, also pictured nowhere in this issue.

"The cloud does not love you, but it does not, particularly, mind you."

The cloud will accept offerings between the hours of nine and eleven in the morning and again from four to six in the afternoon, though it has, on at least three occasions in the past calendar year, refused to acknowledge a Thursday. A feeding tray is provided. Drag the item of your choosing onto the cloud. The cloud does not require speed and would, in fact, prefer that you take your time about it.

House Rules, Abridged.

No nutmeg, under any circumstance. No matches. No items belonging to the third-floor tenant, whose name will not appear in these pages. Do not address the cloud by name; it does not have one, and reminding it of this fact is regarded by the Committee as unkind. Wipe the floor afterward. Close the door behind you on the way out.

This Week's Reading.

The cloud is currently working its way through the Tuesday Times crossword puzzle for the week of August 8, 1994, which it has been working on, by all available accounts, since the week of August 8, 1994.

Today's Resident.

Front Room · S.E. Corner
Bar. 30.04 · 64°F · 71% R.H.
Drag offerings here. The cloud does not require speed.
Feeding Tray · For the Patient Visitor

Reactions Log

9:42 a.m.The cloud is present. The cloud is unhurried. The day continues without further notice.
Standing Notice · Form 7-B · For the Office of the Superintendent
Filed · 4-C

To the Office of the Superintendent, Mr. M. Olshansky, ground floor rear:

I, the undersigned, being a tenant in good standing of Apartment of the building presently standing at 1118 Linden Avenue, do hereby formally acknowledge — for the records of the building, and for the records of any future tenant who may inherit my lease — the continuing presence of one (1) small cloud currently in residence in my .

It is the considered judgment of this tenant that the cloud is, as of the hour of submission, principally , and that it require additional saucers from the front office in the coming calendar month.

Items fed to the cloud since the previous filing of this form are enumerated below for the records:

Further notes, complaints, observations, or kind regards to be passed along to the cloud (the Committee will, in good faith, attempt to relay these, though no guarantee of receipt is implied):

Respectfully and without exaggeration,

, tenant.

Form 7-B was last revised in November of 1997, and the Office of the Superintendent has, to date, declined to acknowledge any submission of it. The Committee files it regardless, on the grounds that the alternative is to stop, and the Committee does not stop.

Completed forms are collected in the brass slot to the left of the elevator. The slot has not been emptied since 2004.

Classifieds & Notices.

For sale: One brass barometer, slightly off. Reads "fair" in all weather including the snow last February. Asking $4 or honest trade for stamps of any denomination. Inquire Apt. 2-A, ring twice.

Wanted: The author of last week's anonymous letter regarding the smell in the second-floor hallway. We have your umbrella. We will continue to have your umbrella for as long as it takes.

Found: One sock, gray, woolen, slightly damp, in the southeast corner of the front room of Apartment 4-C. Owner please describe in detail before claiming.

Lessons: Patience, instructed at length, by appointment with the cloud. No charge. Bring a book. Bring two if you intend to stay past noon.

Notice: The third-floor tenant continues to deny ownership of the umbrella mentioned at right. The Committee continues, in turn, to disbelieve him on the matter, and will do so until further evidence is provided.

Notice: The mimeograph on the second floor has begun, in recent weeks, to smell faintly of bay leaf. The cause is presumed but not confirmed. No remedy is being sought at this time.

Personal: To the cloud — the philodendron sends its regards and is, in spite of certain rumors, doing fine. — M.

Reminder: Saucers belong to the building. Please return saucers, when emptied, to the cupboard in the front office. Do not, under any condition, take a saucer home with you.