The leeches inside the Tempest Prognosticator are unionising. Demanding larger glass jars with maisonette balconies, fresh blood, shorter shifts. Their inventor once imagined this island protected by carousels of weather-predicting leeches. Fishermen offering prayers to Hirudo medicinalis. He developed leech-based technologies of every kind, foresaw the leech-boom, the leech-bust, the grim post-leech years. Now Hooke’s Otheometer is on strike and the pressure is rising. The leeches are tired of commuting from the swamps. Tired of sweet-talking the thunder, of asking the rain why it is so. They wrap their spiralling mouths over a cloud and inhale the mist. It doesn’t matter. In the morning, new barometers will arrive to replace them.