Cloudmother

Andrew jumped when Peter tapped him on the shoulder. He'd been staring up at the sky instead of paying attention to the time or the crowd around him.

Peter looked up. “What do you see up there? A spaceship? A missile? Should we be running?”

Andrew gave him a small smile. “No, it’s just a nice day. The sky is blue, the sun is shining, the clouds are huge and fluffy.”

“Wow, you look at you getting all poetic.”

“I guess staring at the sky is better than hitting the bottle.”

Peter stared at him a moment. Are you doing okay? I mean, since…”

Andrew turned and took off. “Change the subject, Peter.”

Saturday was another beautiful, clear day; the kind of day spent outdoors with friends or a lover. Unfortunately, Andrew had neither of those. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He had friends. Friends like Peter, who tried to withhold their looks of pity, who tried to get him to talk about it, who asked if he needed anything. He didn’t want their pity or their shoulders to cry on. He certainly didn’t have a lover. That ended the day he had come home to find Jamie in bed with an acquaintance of theirs. Andrew took a deep breath, trying to tamp down the rage, and sadness that still threatened to choke him months later. 

He leaned his head against the cool glass of his window. He didn’t have much of a view, here amidst the skyscrapers, but he caught sight of a sliver of sky, as blue as a robin’s egg, and one perfect, fat cloud.

A quote that he’d heard in college came to his mind, almost as if it had been whispered in his ear, “When we feel stuck, look at the sky. The clouds remind us that everything changes.” Andrew’s eyes widened. That…was entirely too appropriate. The morning was beautiful. He needed to get out, breathe, feel the air on his skin.  

He was probably imagining it, but as he thought this, Andrew could have sworn the cloud he was staring at wiggled.

He strolled around his neighborhood for a bit, but it felt too stifling and held too many memories of his and Jamie’s time together. He needed space. He needed to lay out and stare at nothing. No, not nothing. He’d stare at the sky, as he’d done as a child. His mother would take him and his brother, Tony, to the park and they’d lay on the grass, whispering to each other about what they saw in the sky and what the clouds were trying to say.

He made his way to the park and found a spot on the lush grass with not too many other people nearby and lay back. Small, wispy clouds took up space in the calm, blue sky, but directly above Andrew, there was one lovely, cottony cloud.

There were no other clouds as splendid as this one, so Andrew decided that today, it would be his cloud. But even as he thought that the cloud shifted. He waited to see if it would morph into the fantastical shapes of his youth - perhaps a dragon, perhaps a cat, perhaps a race car.

The cloud became rounder, spaces opening up in what had been a solid cloud. And as it shifted, Andrew sat up, his mouth agape, for it looked like nothing less than a smiling emoji.

He looked around. There were others out here cloud-gazing. Were they seeing what he was seeing? No one else seemed surprised or in awe. Andrew rubbed his eyes - maybe he’d stared at the sun a bit too long. No, his cloud was still smiling at him. Andrew smiled back and felt better than he had in weeks.

Andrew held onto that feeling the entire weekend. A cloud - his cloud - had smiled at him. Not just smiled but smiled at him when he’d needed it the most. He almost wanted to call his brother and tell him what happened, remind him of their childhood imaginings, but Tony would probably tell him to get laid or get therapy.

He waited on Peter outside in the courtyard of their building, once again staring at the sky. There were other clouds in the sky today, white and puffy, but not nearly as perfect as his cloud. Again, it was in a shape that Andrew hadn’t imagined. It looked like a hand. There was a slight breeze, no doubt shifting the clouds in the sky, but…it looked as if his cloud was waving to him.

Once again, Peter managed to startle him, poking him in the ribs. “You still looking for spaceships, man?”, Peter asked.

Andrew let out a nervous chuckle. “No, just checking out the sky.”

“Okay. But make sure you shut your mouth before a bird craps in it.”

“Funny. Seriously, though, isn't it pretty? And look at the clouds.”

Peter looked up. “It’s just a sky, man. They’re just clouds.”

“You don’t see anything up there?’

“Like what, rain clouds or something?”

“No. I mean, didn’t you ever look at the clouds and imagine they were shapes, like dogs or rocket ships?”

“Eh, probably when I was a kid, but that was years ago. Who’s got the time for that anymore? I mean, come on - bills, kids, work. Anyway, we getting lunch or what?” 

“Yeah, sure lead the way.”

Peter took off to head down the block to their favorite lunch place, and behind him, Andrew got the notion to raise his hand a bit and wave his fingers at the gently swaying cloud.

Was he going mad? Andrew’s day was almost done and through his office window a cloud - perhaps the one he had claimed - seemed so close, as if it was watching him, keeping him company. Later, when he went home, the air was damp, the beginning of a fog rolling in.

He made himself a simple dinner, then an urge to look at the past overtook him. Andrew removed photo albums from his shelf. Pictures of himself, so serious even back then, much like his father. Pictures of Tony, wild and free like their mother. And, like a knife sliding between his ribs, pictures of Jamie, of what might have been.

Was he going mad? The fog that had been building, that was so unusual for this particular place, at this particular time of year, hung outside of his window, so thick he couldn’t even see the glow of lights from the building across the alley.

Tony could tell him if he was insane. Tony himself was mad, wild, and free, so if it sounded odd to him - the idea of clouds following him - well, then, he had gone insane. Tony’s phone rang several times before he answered.

“Hey, Tony, it’s me.”

“Andy! Good to hear from you. How have you been, brother?”

Uh, good, good. How are you guys?

The “guys” were Tony’s four children who were wild and free and exuberant as their father, running around barefoot and whispering to animals. And Sarita, Tony’s partner, who for the past twenty years, felt no need to endure the formality of a marriage ceremony, and who both entranced and terrified Andrew, and smelled dry and crisp like the desert at night. She rarely spoke, and when she did, her speech was odd and stilted, as if she spent more time communing with unseen things than with people.

“Perfect as usual. What’s wrong, Andy?

“Wrong? Why do you think something is wrong?”

“You sound wrong. The Andy I know is confident. You sound…unsettled.”

Andrew blew out a breath. “I- some strange things have been happening lately, and I just wanted to talk to someone about them.” His eyes burned suddenly and he wanted to kneel on the floor and weep. “I think I’m going crazy, Tony.”

Andrew heard Sarita in the background, but couldn’t understand what she had said. He heard Tony muffle the phone and respond to her before coming back on the line.

“Tell me what’s going on, Andy.

Andrew felt tears track down his face, and around what felt like a rock sitting in his throat, he said, “I think clouds are following me.”

“Ah,” Tony replied.

“Ah? Is that all you’re going to say? If I were you, I’d be calling some professionals to come to get me.”

Andrew heard Sarita again. Clearer this time. “Kokumthena.”

“What was that, Tony? What did Sarita say?”

Oh, that makes sense,” Tony said, but Andrew wasn’t sure to whom he was speaking.

“Sarita says Kokumthena.”

“I heard. What does that mean, exactly?”

“What you said. The clouds are following you.”

Suddenly, the whole thing seemed utterly ridiculous. Andrew laughed and laughed, and the tears on his face were no longer tears of fear or sorrow.

“Are you actually serious right now, Tony?”, Andrew said

“Yes, why not? Sarita thinks so, too.”

“Because I’m a CPA!”

“That’s not my fault, Andy.”

Andy heard rustling, and then heard Sarita’s voice in his ear. “Andrew, do you know of Kokumthena?”

There was something about Sarita that brought on formality as if she was his elder, rather than several years younger than him. “No, Sarita, I do not.”  

“Kokumthena is your mother.”

“Uhh…my mother’s name is Wilma. We have Thanksgiving with her every year.”

‘She’s your mother, my mother, everyone’s mother. She’s Saranyu and Zhinu. She is the creator of the world and the people. She loves you. She wants you to know she loves you, even if you have problems loving yourself right now.”

It had sounded insane when Tony said it, but coming from Sarita…it felt right. It felt real. For the first time in a long time, Andrew felt calm and peaceful. He accepted and felt worthy of the love the universe was choosing to show him.

Andrew heard more rustling, then Tony was back on the phone. “So, yeah, what Sarita said, there you go. And, you know we love you, too, right?”  

“Yes. Yes, I know. I love you, guys too.”

Promises were made for Andrew to come to visit Tony, and Andrew intended to keep that promise, sooner rather than later. Perhaps he would become a wild creature of the desert, perhaps he would join Tony’s intentional community and harvest herbs and spicy peppers, or whisper into the night and entice wild horses to feed from his hand, or dance and spin and howl.

He took a deep breath and looked out his window. The fog seemed thicker than it had before. He went to the window and opened it. 

Tendrils of fog, warm and moist slid in and curled up his arm and around his body

Andrew knew his cloud loved him and that all would be well.

The End