The Colour of Clouds

Greg sat on the edge of the seawall and watched the small waves roll lazily up the shingle and hiss into listless oblivion. His world was grey; the sea was grey; the sky was grey. Even the call of a circling seagull sounded flat and grey: In short, Greg wasn’t happy. It was not as though his life was bad. He had a tolerable job, with a reasonable wage, a car that got him from A to B without any drama. And he had Julie - everyone loved Julie. She was funny and smart and just her presence could brighten the mood of a room. His friends would tell Greg that he was a lucky bastard, and he’d have to agree. She was beautiful and amazing, and he didn’t deserve to be with her.

  But that was then, and this was now. In the sombre light of a drab morning, his perceived reality was a cold and unforgiving companion. The dilemma he faced was simple, stick with Julie, or walk away from her, back to his old life. Of course there had been girls before Julie. But Greg had seen himself as a free spirit - a party animal. His aim in life: fun and sun, and long weekends away with his mate. The world, he told anyone who would listen, was his oyster. And would never be tied down. In truth, Greg had been a living, breathing cliché. Which was a polite way of saying he’d been full of B.S. 

  Greg, however, was not aware of this. All he could see was his life grinding down to bleak monotony. Julie loved him; he knew that. And if he broke up with her tonight, which he knew he would. She would hate him, and he would feel dreadful, and some would think him an idiot. But he would be free. He’d go down to the club, get in a round, and all would be as it once was. 

 Out over the sea, the circling gull stretched out its neck and screeched at the claggy clouds. Beneath it, more gulls bobbed in sullen silence on the cold, grey ripples.

‘Their arses must be frozen,’ Greg thought, pulling his hoody tight around him to close out the chill.

   He’d noticed an elderly man walking along the seawall towards him but had paid the man little heed. Greg didn’t look up as the man lowered himself awkwardly onto the wall beside him. And irritated by the unwelcome intrusion on to his space, he wondered why the old git didn’t sit on the bench further along the wall. Isn’t that what the bench was there for? So that old duffer’s could cogitate about how things were better in their day. Before some woman came along and snared them, Greg thought. 

  The man’s presence boosted Greg’s resolve. He was just twenty-two, and would not be trapped into a long, relentless slide towards the domesticity, tedium, and the drudgery that his dad had endured. That wasn’t going to happen to him. Because tonight was the night, he broke free. He leant froward to stand, and the man spoke. 

‘Do you ever look at the clouds?’ He said.

  ‘What?’ Greg replied, deciding in an instant that he must be senile.

   ‘The clouds, do you ever look at the clouds?’

   ‘No, they’re shit,’ Greg replied.

   ‘Are they?’ The man said.

   Greg thought of making a sarky remark about the old codger needing new glasses. But something about the man’s calm and measured voice checked him. And to his surprise, he heard himself say in a conversational tone. ‘Yeah look, they’re grey, probably going to piss down in a minute.’

  ‘Indeed, they are grey,’ the man conceded, ‘but you are looking, not seeing.’

  ‘Of course, I’m seeing, they’re grey, look,’ Greg said.

   The man nodded. ‘Yes, where the sea meets the sky, the clouds are indeed grey. But look above the horizon,’ he pointed. ‘Look, there’s a line of cloud that is more blue than grey. And above that swirl of cobalt grey. Those clouds are closer to us and lower in the sky. But above them, higher and further away, the clouds are silver, like the wheels on your car. I take it that’s your car parked over there.’ It was a statement, not a question. He continued. ‘Above those, the clouds are lighter and thinning. Turned slate blue by the daylight reflecting off lower clouds and refracting through the water droplets.’

 ‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Greg agreed. He wanted to say something sharp and streetwise. But nothing came, and anyway it didn’t seem right. So he said nothing as the flock of gulls rose from the sea and wheeled around to join with their lone companion careening above.

 ‘What colour are the gulls?’ The man said.

 ‘White, of course, they’re gulls,’ Greg scoffed at the man.

 ‘Look again,’ the man instructed, his voice relaxed and patient.

 Greg watched as the gulls circled out over the sea. And as he watched, he realised that, yes at that moment, catching the diffused light from the clouds, they took on a subtle shade of blue; like the opaline gourami’s in his dad’s aquarium. 

  He realised, to his surprise, that he didn’t want the gulls to leave. But knowing that they soon would, he drank in every second of their aerial ballet against the silver blue-grey clouds.

  When they did eventually head off along the coast, in a straggly squawking flock, Greg noticed shafts of sunlight breaking through the cloud. Their beams brushing the surface of the sea, causing tiny diamonds to blink in and out of existence as they danced on the crests of waves. In an instant, he recalled Julies’ face. The impishly excited grin she gave him as she threw her arms around his neck, to tell him in breathless detail about her day. 

  For a moment, time seemed to hang. Greg stared out to sea and felt conflicted. It was as though he was at the centre of an indifferent universe. Which, in his own individual way, he was.

  Then he got it; what the old man had been banging on about. It was so obvious. If you thought that all was grey, then all you would see would be grey. But the colour was there, it was always there, in a smile, a laugh, or a hug. All you had to do was seek it out. Greg turned to the old man, not knowing what to say, but the wall beside him was empty. A confused frown clouded his face. And then he noticed the man walking unhurriedly away.

  Greg settled back on the wall with just the distant cry of departing gulls and the languorous hiss of the waves for company. He wondered if Julie had ever seen the colour of clouds. He would ask her this evening. She would probably laugh and call him daft. But he wasn’t daft. Deep down he’d always known which side of the street the sun shone. He just needed a moment to realise - it was on the side of the street that Julie walked.