Clouds

By R.J. Byrd

*15 minute writing challenge*

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with clouds. I would gaze up at them for a long time, letting my imagination run wild. I would wonder what they felt like, tasted like, smelled like. In my mind, they were tantalizingly close pieces of fantasy. I would think about floating up to them, playing with them. Jumping from cloud to cloud without a care.

I would imagine taking naps on them and waking up in a new location. Traveling the world safely in the clouds was a regular fantasy of mine. A fantastic adventure.

I would pay more attention when the clouds were particularly low in the sky. It felt like any moment, I could spontaneously float up to land softly on a cloud; they were so close. I wanted that so badly.

I remember someone once said, “Fog is like a cloud on the ground,” which did not sit well with my fantasy. Fog was dense, intangible, nothing. I couldn’t bounce on it or travel the world on it.

Oh, no, no, no.

Fog was nothing like my clouds. They were thick, puffy, white, and amazing. So much better than fog. I learned a little about clouds in elementary school, and while I was interested, again, the factual clouds discussed were not my clouds. They were a pale facsimile of what was in my imagination.

To this day, I still enjoy looking up at the clouds. Finding familiar shapes in their randomness. I’ve always known they were not like my fantasies, but as I got older they sort of lost their ethereal appeal. I stopped imagining floating up to them, traveling on them, or wrapping myself in them like a blanket. But they’re still beautiful, and they still spark my imagination.

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