The
cloud hangs over the city, shrouding it with its damp shadow. I watch the tiny
ants of people, milling around, looking for a place to avoid the heavy rain
that was beating down on them. I laugh from my place up in the cloud, watching
them shiver against the cold that I had already conquered. I hug my knees close
to my chest as I sit in my bed deep inside the cloud. How I got to the cloud I
do not know; I had found myself in the solitary bed, on the heavy cloud from
the start of my existence. My only entertainment is watching the little people
living their days avoiding the droplets under small umbrellas and prodigious
buildings alike. I laugh at their helplessness, their petty fright of the cold,
and their constant search for warmth while I sit in my solid bed, immersed in
the chill and forever unable to feel the heat of the earth or the sun.
I
cannot leave my bed in fear of falling through to the ground but I am always
watching the tiny people travel from place to place in metal machines,
constantly wiping away at their drenched windows. As I rest in my small island
up in the clouds, I laugh at the people’s endless need to move around. I enjoy
their feeble attempts to break through the downpour and relish their dismay
when they realize that they are stuck inside. I laugh and laugh in the bed I
cannot leave, embracing my superiority over the tiny creatures that cannot
fight the strength of the cloud I sit upon.
On the
cloud I slowly crawl through life, the wind blowing me across old oceans and
into new land where I can watch the flickering lights bounce off my cloud and shine
back into their lives. Even through the night, people are constantly talking,
chatting through invisible wires, vocalizing their own thoughts. I scoff at
their never-ending crave to interact, their inability to enjoy their lives
without others. I grasp into the cloud unable to feel anything but my own body
and feel a twinge in my chest – proof that I know how to live out my own life devoid
of anyone else. The wind pushes my cloud through the sky as I lay on my bed and
revel in life, happily alone.
The
more places we travel to, the lighter my cloud gets. My fear of falling grows
stronger by the minute as I see the ground more and more clearly. The bed under
me becomes increasingly unstable and I hold tight to the frame in hopes I would
not get tossed over. This continued for ages until finally the clouds
broke apart and I fell. After a second into my descent, my fear evaporates. I
see the inferior people grow bigger than I ever imagined, their eyes wide
staring at the girl who is falling from the sky. The warmth radiating from the
ground and the sun reaches me for the first time and thaws my frozen body. The exhilaration
of leaving my bed for the first time grasps my mind and I scream in joy. “Look
at me!” I shout, communicating with others for the first time as the twinge
grasps hold of my heart and pumps it full of the relief of being heard. In the
few seconds before I hit the ground, I feel everything at once. For the first
time in my life I feel truly and utterly alive.
