Storm Clouds by Brendan James ’14
The boy’s eyes flickered open; above him lay nothing but a crisp blue. Cool, light winds tickled his nose. He sat up, his eyelids still weighed down by fatigue, and saw an ocean of white, a sea of cottony liquid slowly churning around him. His fists closed around damp floss-like material the texture of cotton candy. When he stood, his bare feet lightly sank into the island of cloud and a blast of fresh breeze whipped his barber-cut hair. His brown slacks, cut two inches too short, allowed the cloud to hug his bare ankles as he took a step. He stumbled, his steps uneven and brisk, causing him to almost slip over the edge. He lay on his belly, peaking over a small crack between the clouds. Below him stretched miles and miles of pasture, flat and thin as if it could be pealed back like an onion. Blankets of grass, stiff and damp from the morning dew, gazed up at him and glittered like Fourth of July sparklers.
He stood and toddled back to the center of the cloud where he sat down and cried for no particular reason. There was a small sense of loneliness on the cloud even though the cool air and blue sky provided him with the gift of choice. The boy could roam free, dance and sail among the clouds. His daydreaming became stale as a small figure materialized in the corner of his vision. A white sundress fluttered around two pale legs. A young girl with a white face and skin, cold blonde pigtails and callous blue eyes stared anxiously at him. The boy wiped the tears from his cheek. Just as he inched forward, the girl dashed away. The boy shouted. The girl kept running. The boy chased. He never caught her. Finally he stood their bent over panting, screaming for the girl to wait, but the girl didn’t stop and she never answered.
He moved over to the end of the cloud and sat cross-legged, looking over the edge. A city, black and restless city lay motionless except for the shades the crept along its broken asphalt. Skyscrapers empty, not a single car engine roared over the city streets. Nor bar nor tavern lights shone. No children raced around the trunks of maple trees. As the boy gazed down, the blue sky that guarded him turned dark grey. A crackle of thunder stomped. Below him the now-dark clouds at his feet muffled a flash of lightening.
A few meters away, the boy saw an old woman, once tall, now slouched at the shoulders, her hair mud-brown, her eyes dark, piercing and sunken. He inched backwards as thunder below crashed and lightning flickered. The old woman shrieked like a bleating lamb, screaming words of hatred, disgust, punishment and rage. The boy fled. His scrawny legs pulled him farther and farther away from the thunder and the women, both barking at him with horrifying wrath.
He sat down clutching his knees to his chest, his hands on his ears, waiting and crying. From the corner of his glance came a blinding light that stung his irises. He blindly marched forward with a hand over his eyes and left the raging tempest behind. A young woman, mahogany hair wrapped in a white scarf, with glimmering blue eyes, stood before a golden gate with arms extended, her expression loving and serene. As the boy made his way toward her, his body shivered from the cold and his tear-streaked face was printed pale and bleak. The young woman took his hand in her palm and guided him towards gate. As they made their way up the staircase, he began to feel disembodied. Each step up the staircase felt like a nail being hammered into his stomach. His mind began to outrun his consciousness and he saw images of people he once knew, people he once loved. Just as the young woman opened the gate, the boy fell and plunged through the clouds.
His eyes flickered open to the sound of a metronomic beeping. Around him a circle of onlookers stood enveloped in conversation, paid him no attention. So he shuttered his eyes back closed. As the breath rattled out of his feeble lungs, he thought of the golden gates. The young woman’s smile had stung of warmth and welcome. The boy ached to return to the golden gates, prayed for them to unlatch so he could enter a new solace. His mind unchained and his movements unhindered, the boy returned.
The woman wrapped his palm in her hand and guided him. She unlatched the towering golden gates and they entered into fields of bliss, paradise beyond reality, the land above the clouds.