Cloudling

Cloudling
	I like to jog at night. I used to only jog during the day, but recently I’ve discovered that running through the gold-onyx gem at of nighttime is more invigorating. Both mentally and physically.
	I had just finished my run and the sky was silver and sapphire, with a sprinkle of tiny diamonds. The shards of silver were flying rapidly east, faster than any clouds I’ve ever seen. Lyra the Harp shone down through a large gap in the clouds, the only constellation I could see that night. I nodded to her, and she nodded back. I returned my attention to the clouds.
	Leaning against my mother’s car, I could see them racing east, with a slight, circular, southern tilt. Would they circle back to greet me again? Would they bring news of the war-torn country? Of things beyond the wall? I didn’t know if their circular path would take them that far.
	I wondered if clouds were immortal. Surely they dissipated in the atmosphere are some point? Did they really die then, or did they simply reform somewhere else? Did they avoid the Dreadlands beyond the wall? Could the monstrous things in the Dread really corrupt the sky? So many things I didn’t know. I hoped the clouds could travel through the Dread without being corrupted. I hoped they could return and tell me things. Despite my horror at the Dread and what I had seen it do, I couldn’t help but be hypnotized and fascinated by it.
	The silver shards continued to race east, moving so fast against the turtle-pace of the stars. Close enough for me to touch. Almost.
	Maybe I could. I communicated regularly with the stars and constellations. I reached out mentally to the constellations. I’ve often wondered if I was insane. It was always the Constellations, not the individual stars! Why were my astral communications like that, when the stars in the constellations were so far removed from each other and, more importantly, human mythos? Another thing I couldn’t fathom. Aside from insanity, I had decided that the stars, once they entered my mind to communicate, were forced to conform to human thought. The way a liquid takes the shape of the container.
	But I digress. Maybe I could communicated with the clouds the way I do with the stars. Perhaps, if my conformity theory was correct, I would experience more of the cloud’s true selves than I do. The myths of the clouds are more or less unknown to me. I decided to put all questions aside and reach out to the clouds.
	Their watery presence filled my mind and bathed my body in coolness. My heart, still beating hard from the run, slowed to an almost bradycardic speed. My thoughts slowed similarly, drenched as they were in the rain of the cloud’s thoughts. I began to perceive a mist, a wondrous thing, a haze of melted silver coins. Totally impenetrable and all around me.
	Windy voices made themselves known to me, asking and inquiring. This communication was different. I was right. Instead of being forced into a human psyche, they met me halfway. We both took on some aspects of the other to create something amazing, something that had never existed before. They asked me what water tasted like, and to answer I took a sip from my water bottle I take jogging. Moving the bottle seemed to take whole minutes, yet neither of us seemed to mind. The blank taste of water filled my mouth. The clouds were delighted with this new frontier of sensation and invited me to ask a question.
	I asked them what lightning felt like. I was then filled with power! Raw, uncontrollable energy built within me. It raged furiously through my bodies before bursting forth, from which body I still can’t tell, as a red jagged knife that fell to the earth with indescribable force and heat. It scorched the pavement mere feet away from my human body.
	We spent eons trading sensations and experiences. They grew accustomed to the feel of my human senses, and I learned what it felt like to live in a gaseous state. Even with the universes of time we spent together, we still only had a crude understanding of each other .WE could speak each other’s language fluently, and that’s the most that can be said. Eventually, we both had to be going. They had places to go and I had people to see. I never asked them about the Dreadlands. I tried, but once I had the notion my mental tongue turned to dust and I no longer had the courage.
	We left each other’s mind with a certain reluctance and went our own ways. They were still racing east, their speed belying their state of being. I was still leaning on my mother’s car, in the gold-onyx of night. The eons I had lived in my mind had passed in mere minutes.
	I walked inside, into a warm and bright house. My mother was sitting in her red reclining chair, with our black cat purring on her lap.
	“Did you hear any thunder?” I asked.
	She thought for a second. “No, I don’t think I did.”
	I headed upstairs to my room, before she could ask an awkward question like “why?”
	The lightning had never happened, To this day, I don’t know if I am insane or gifted. Sometimes, I fail to see the difference. I choose to believe the clouds are conscious, and immortal, The thought of a beautiful, innocent entity like the clouds perishing is repulsive to my very nature.
	I’ve communed with them many times since the first. We grow more skilled with each other’s corporeal forms with each conversation. They’ve taken to calling me “Cloudling”.