If I Was a Cloud

by Mahima Rupakula
I am as free as can be. Looking down, I see the world. Is it dry? Am I prepared to cry? My tears turn into life, my tears are rain. No, this world is happy, for now. I can float away for a moment. Oh! My arm has split! It will come back, the vapor will reform. Ahh, my life is never over, it has never even started. Wait, I think I hear something. It’s just those children. What do those silly humans think I look like now? One says ice cream, one says penguin. They are such fun! My arm has come bad and is telling me to depart. Time to leave, must not upset the island. They have been having a harsh drought.

Just looking down at those poor people, suffering under the heat and dry weather, I start to turn black with rain. Darker and darker I become. The people start to cheer, and I start to tear. The rain has fallen, the crops are alive and the fires are out. Then I feel myself start to move. The chilly North ocean wind is tearing at us again. I am blown to Illinois and meet more of me there. (This may be confusing. It’s just that each cloud is not entirely single. Each cloud is actually made of water droplets that were part of one single cloud once. That large cloud, the one that became us little clouds, was called Cangea.) The north ocean wind is ordering us to do something. No! It cannot be! I will never turn against those poor citizens. The wind shakes the snow out of our unwilling arms. The snow turns into a blizzard and I start to feel very cold. My fluffy stature starts to expand and my shoes become hail. I try to pull away smelling the frosty, salty smell that comes from the north ocean. The north ocean winds will never catch up to me if I become a cirrus cloud. I taste water, the blood of a cloud. I realize there is no time to shrink, I plummet toward the Earth.

Down I go, and I disguise as fog. Slowly my molecules stop contracting and start expanding. I felt a slight brush of material as I pass through objects. Now I feel safe, now I feel happy. I will be safe as soon as the warm and tropical south sea winds pick me up. A cloud is never really sad, we do not really feel. All I feel is particles, expanding and contracting. All I do is fly on the winds, waiting for my chance to dissolve away.