A Cloud Story

Once, all clouds lived in a narrow zone above a mountain range that bordered a sea. The clouds fed on water vapor in the moist sea breezes that blew ashore and rode aloft on the mountainsides. When moisture was plentiful, the clouds let the excess water fall as rain, and the earth beneath was cool and green.

The best positions, the ones that all clouds wanted, were above the windward slopes of the highest mountain peaks where the winds were cool and nourishing; but since there were more clouds than mountains, the biggest bully clouds always held these choice locations. The smaller clouds had to scramble and scratch for moisture in crevices and valleys and above the low foothills.

Life for small clouds was not easy in the best of times, and as the population increased, it grew even more difficult. When the sea breezes stopped, as they sometimes did, a few small clouds always starved to death because there was not enough moisture to go around. During these hard times, the small clouds had to make difficult choices. They either settled for a meager and precarious existence on the fringes of society, or they exchanged their freedom for an illusion of security and joined the slave clouds that clustered about and served the big clouds. Occasionally, some small clouds joined to grab a good site from a large, old, tired, cloud; but these efforts, even when they succeeded, only resulted in a new bully.

The boundary of this cloud world was not well defined toward the sea; small clouds often ventured out over the water when wind and temperature conditions were particularly favorable, or when they had to flee from a big cloud; but they never stayed out for long, because updrafts were few over the flat sea, and clouds cannot live without updrafts.

The other boundary, over the mountains, was another matter however. A crooked visible line along the crest of the mountain range divided the habitable world--the green side--from the vast unknown and uninhabitable--the dry side. The mountains on this dry side descended gradually in long sharp ridges that quickly lost all traces of vegetation and turned to rolling brown foothills covered with jagged sun-scorched chunks of volcanic rock. Beyond the foothills a desert stretched away to the horizon, and it shimmered and heaved menacingly when viewed through the heat waves in the still air that lay above it.

The sun was merciless on the dry side, and no cloud ever willingly crossed the line for long. Sometimes a big cloud, angry at a small cloud caught stealing moisture from an air current that the big cloud claimed, pursued the small cloud until, confused and desperate, it dashed across the line. It meant almost certain death, for there was little chance of getting back across the divide to safety unless the big cloud showed mercy--which seldom happened. The big cloud would block the small cloud's return path, and send hot dry winds down the slope. The big clouds used these executions as examples to keep the small clouds under control. The other clouds would crowd up to the line and peer in horrified fascination between the mountain peaks at the struggles of their unfortunate comrade. The small cloud would scramble to reclimb the slope against the devilish wind until, weak and exhausted, it would dissolve into the dry air before the onlookers' eyes.

The dry side was the subject of much speculation and rumor among the clouds. "No cloud can survive out there," they all agreed. "The plain stretches to the end of the earth."

"It is the barrier that separates us from the gods."

The priest clouds said this, and they said it loud and often; they claimed divine connections and thus wielded a considerable influence in the cloud society. "It is a sin to cross to the dry side," they said. "That is the domain of the gods and they have forbidden clouds there."

And yet, when the sea breezes stopped, and life became difficult for the clouds, these same priest clouds said that it was because the gods were angry and a sacrifice was the only way to appease them. Then the priest clouds would meet in secret and, by a process known only to themselves, select one of the small clouds (it was always a small cloud) to be driven across the line to the dry side as an offering. The fact that these sacrifices had no noticeable effect on the sea winds, did nothing to cast doubt on their effectiveness in the eyes of the priest clouds.

The big clouds, sitting fat and dark atop their peaks like monarchs on thrones, boomed and flashed and gave orders and made all sorts of unreasonable demands upon the small clouds. Sometimes they argued among themselves and tried to grab one another's territories. As in everything else however, these disputes only harmed the small clouds. The big clouds recruited them into armies, and the small clouds did most of the fighting.

There were some defiant small clouds who, from time to time, rebelled against the tyranny of the big clouds and tried to stand against them, but these rebels, if they persisted, usually ended in one of two ways: they either capitulated and became slaves, or they died on the dry side. Even the other small clouds, fearful of the big clouds' wrath, denounced these rebels as the cause for most of the community's problems.

One small cloud emerged as the most rebellious of all. As a youngster, he listened and watched; he nosed about near other clouds both powerful and weak, and he overheard their conversations and observed their actions. As he pondered what he heard and saw, he realized that most of the needless misery and injustice in cloud existence was caused by greed and by the senseless cruelty of clouds to one another. He became curious about why things were as they were, and he began to ask questions that others dared not ask.

Soon, the small cloud began to speak to others about his ideas on the state of their existence and the quality of justice that seemed to him so abused. He spoke mostly to small clouds, for the big clouds cared little about what he said or thought as long as he stayed in his place. But once, when a big cloud thundered and threatened a group of small hungry clouds who had encroached on territory claimed by the big cloud, the small cloud boldly piped up and said, "Why can't we use this territory? You do not need it, and we will do it no harm. We have a right to live."

The small clouds gasped and the big cloud was taken aback at first; it was unheard of for a small cloud to talk back. The big cloud sputtered and rumbled for a moment and then advanced, fat and menacing, on the small cloud. The big cloud stirred up the wind and howled in anger at the cheekiness of the little intruder.

"How dare you, you little sheep!" he raged. "To talk to your better like that is cause for punishment." He sent out tremendous bolts of lightning that shocked and dazed the small cloud so that he could hardly move. But luckily the big cloud was slow and awkward. The small cloud managed to slip between two peaks and escape down a gully.

He stayed hidden until he recovered from the lightning shocks. "It's not fair!" he said over and over. "We have to scramble and fight for every little updraft and scrap of moisture just to stay alive, while the big clouds waste enough to feed all of cloudkind."

His fellow small clouds were concerned for his safety and they cautioned him to be careful. They did not like to arouse the anger of the big clouds. But the rebellious small cloud began again to speak his mind in public; he tried to enlist other small clouds to join with him and resist the tyranny, but they all turned their backs and hurried away, too frightened to be seen with him. There were a few, a very few, who came to him secretly and voiced their support for his ideas, but none were courageous enough to back him in public. He soon developed a reputation as the worst of the troublemakers, and the big clouds began to eye him with increasing suspicion and dislike.

Then one day, as he hung in a quiet sky absorbing moisture from the meager updraft above a small hill, a dark shadow blocked the sun and brought a chill to the air. He looked up and was startled to see a wall of big gray clouds advancing menacingly toward him.

"What...what do you want?" the small cloud said in an alarmed voice.

"We have just concluded a council meeting concerning your anti-social behavior," thundered the largest cloud. "You have been convicted, in a fair trial before your peers, of treason and other unspecified crimes against cloud society and have officially been branded a danger to the status quo. The cloud council, in a generous show of kindness has sentenced you to be incorporated into the slave ranks."

The small cloud was thunderstruck. "But you can't," he cried. "I have no wish to be a slave."

"Nevertheless, you must. You have forfeited your rights by your dangerous behavior."

"I'll run," said the small cloud as he darted down a gully and squeezed through a low pass into the next valley.

"Your flight is useless," the big clouds called. "There is no place to hide. We will get you eventually and incorporate you forcibly."

The small cloud continued to flee, staying low to the earth; several times he left parts of himself snagged among the branches of trees or in jagged pockets in the rocks. The other small clouds watched from a distance, but they were afraid and none offered to help him. The big clouds continued to pursue, but they were in no hurry; they knew that eventually they would corner him and have their way.

The small cloud dodged and skipped through the mountains until he had lost much of his strength; tiny sobs of thunder escaped him and rain fell from him like tears. Tired and exhausted, he allowed himself to be maneuvered to a point between two peaks where he discovered that he was trapped. The big clouds formed a solid wall behind him, and before him lay the dry side with the endless plain stretching away forever.

"Well, now," chuckled a big cloud, advancing slowly and arrogantly toward him. "After all this fuss, it has come down to a simple choice that you must make: either accept slavery, or cross the line to the dry side. It's up to you. Either way, we win."

The small cloud hesitated for a moment, but there was no doubt which alternative he would choose. "At least I shall die defiantly," he shouted at the big clouds. "I will not submit." With that, he took a final deep breath of the cool mountain air and plunged over the divide to the dry side. He heard the other small clouds gasp behind him, and the big clouds shouted for him to come back and not be a fool.

The shock of the dry side made him dizzy at first, and he felt himself starting to dissolve at an alarming rate. This is the end of me, he thought. But perhaps if I go bravely, it will inspire those other small clouds, and I will not have died in vain.

Rather than scramble to get back across the ridge to the green side as other trapped clouds had done, the small cloud sailed straight out into the hot dry air above the plain. He tried to conceal his fear, because he wanted to appear brave for the benefit of those watching.

"Please don't let me break down and show my cowardice," he prayed.

He dwindled fast as he proceeded out over the scorching plain. He felt himself shrink in the dry air. It was strange, he thought, that there was no pain; there was merely a weakness, a lightness; and of course there was the unpleasant fear. He shrank and dwindled and dissolved, first to half of his original size, then to a wisp, and then to a speck of fluff that didn't even cast a shadow on the ground below. He was so dehydrated that he could not even shed a tear. "This is the end," he whispered just before he fainted.

When he regained his senses much later, he was doubly surprised; first because he still existed, and second because he felt a slight thermal updraft rising from the desert floor. It was not a strong current, and what moisture was in it was warm and thin, not like the damp cool drafts in the mountains; but it was honest and nourishing. The small cloud, the tiny cloud now, felt a surge of energy and he began to grow very slightly.

He gazed back toward the mountains, but they were so far behind and lay so close above the horizon that it was impossible to distinguish the mountains from the clouds above them; clouds and mountains melted together into a dark gray-blue irregularity between the horizon and the sky. The small cloud felt a twinge of loneliness and had to resist an impulse to use his newfound strength to go back.

"I'll not go back. I do not know what lies ahead of me, but I do know what lies back there. If I perish, at least I can perish on my own terms out here."

He soon discovered that there were other weak and widely scattered thermal cells rising from below, and, by picking his way carefully and hovering to gain strength before dashing rapidly to the next cell, he was able to proceed quite well across the plain.

It was an absorbing task and required such concentration that it was some time before the small cloud realized that the thermals were growing larger and stronger. The energy and moisture flowed up to him in strong currents now, and he was soon quite respectable in size again. As he drifted lazily now on the strong fresh breeze that had sprung up, he continued to build. He became sleek and smooth with fat white billows that grew and churned upward into the clear sky. He looked down and saw that the land had changed; it was flat still, but now it was moist and fertile and covered with tall grass that bent and rippled in the wind like a sea; and there were winding rivers with scattered ponds and lakes that reflected the blue sky like mirrors.

"If only the others knew," he said aloud. "If they could see, they would be amazed at how big the world is."

The excitement of this marvelous adventure completely offset his loneliness, and, when the sun settled below the now unbroken horizon behind him, he rejoiced in his aloneness. It was the wildest freest feeling he had ever experienced, and the thought that unknown pleasures and dangers lay ahead of him in the darkness was exhilarating.

He drifted all night on the quickening breeze, beneath a full bright moon at first, and later, near dawn, there was only the cool hard light from the stars to reveal faint shapes and shadows far below.

When the sun appeared once again, directly before him, he was amazed to see it emerge from behind the silhouette of a mountain range that was higher than any he had dreamed of. It stretched as far as he could see in either direction--from the southern horizon to the northern horizon. And most amazing of all, no clouds inhabited the spaces above the lofty peaks. It was a new world. The small cloud shivered when he thought of the possibilities. There was room enough in this great new world for all, and the moist updrafts over the mountains were almost unlimited.

He selected the tallest peak in the range and set right to work feeding on the nourishing updrafts along the windward slopes. He began to grow. His base spread and turned slate gray, and the rising turbulence within him produced several clean white billows that churned and climbed upward in the clear air. An exciting tension developed and discharged occasionally in a bright flash of lightning that struck the peak beneath him and made the air smell of ozone. He developed a voice, strong and deep, that boomed and echoed through the canyons and out across the plain in the direction from which he had come. He grew in all directions, but most rapidly upward; by the evening, when the sun was once again setting in the west, he had grown a column of pure white vapor that boiled and shown in the sun's rays long after the plain and the mountains were in darkness. Everything within him worked in unison to produce that most majestic and powerful of clouds, the cumulo nimbus--the thunderhead. He was no longer a small cloud, nor a big cloud either--he was a giant.

He soon topped thirty-five thousand feet, and from that height he could see the range of mountains, silhouetted on the western horizon, that he had fled the day before. He flashed tremendous lightning bolts that lit up the darkness and could be seen, he knew, by those other clouds in the old world. He could imagine them gathering at the rim of the dry side to watch the light show he was putting on and to wonder what was causing it.

All through the night he continued to grow and expand, getting stronger and more powerful with each lightning flash and thunder boom; when the dawn came again, he saw the sun long before the highest mountain peaks were aware of its approach. The bright morning sunlight illuminated his head, a rising tower of sparkling white that continued to churn upward through the fifty-thousand-foot level; higher than any cloud had ever dared stand before. The air was sharp and cold at that altitude, but he saw no limit to how high he could go with the resources of the new world. He sent great shouts of encouraging thunder rolling back across the plain to his former companions. He could imagine their wonder at the sight of him, so large and powerful now, after they had given him up for dead. It made him proud; and his new found power intoxicated him so that he did many flashy showy things that, although perhaps in poor taste, were nevertheless excusable because they were the expressions of joyous exuberant life.

"Come across and join me," he cried. "There is room for all. The passage is perilous, but the opportunities make it worth the risk. The sky's the limit here!"

At first, the other small clouds were afraid, and the big clouds scoffed and pretended to ignore the giant in the distance. But then one of the bravest small clouds took a deep breath and launched herself over the divide. She, like the first small cloud, dashed straight out into the plain. Those left behind held their breaths and watched as she dwindled and seemed on the verge of extinction; they began to murmur among themselves and to say that it was foolish to go out there to certain death. But the giant cloud, watching from his great height in the new world, shouted thunderous words of encouragement to the weakening voyager; and, when at last the nearly extinct cloud located a thermal and began to revive, the giant shook the heavens with his booming congratulations.

Other small clouds, emboldened by the successful crossing and lured by the promise of the new world, soon followed across the divide into the baked air of the dry side and dashed toward the horizon. Many of these new immigrants perished on the journey; some were too desperate to be wise, and others were just foolish to begin with. A sufficient number made the passage safely, however, to fuel the wild rumors that circulated concerning the riches in the new land and to excite the imaginations of those who remained behind. The stream of small clouds willing to take the risks and endure the hardships of crossing the plain grew steadily until the big clouds became alarmed. It began to look as if all of the small clouds were going to immigrate, and the big clouds could not tolerate that. Without small clouds to order about and to do their bidding, the big clouds would be left with nobody to pick on but each other, and that would be very inconvenient not to mention dangerous. They began to speak against the new world and the giant, counseling the small clouds to stay in the old world. "Why risk your lives to go live in the shadow of that big showoff?" they said. "There is plenty of room for you to live here, and we big clouds, because we like you and are concerned about you, will even grant you more rights so that you may have more say in your affairs."

Many small clouds listened and agreed with these things; and they nodded and said that their proper place was obviously here in the old world, for that is how it had always been. They even talked disapprovingly of the small clouds who chose to immigrate.

"Good riddance!" they sniffed. "Those who are leaving are only the rabble and the troublemakers anyway. We are better off without them."

Twice the big clouds recruited these loyal small followers into an army and set out to invade the rich new world and bring it under their direct control. But each time the new giant moved to meet them and stood, with loud thunderous warnings and devastating bolts of lightning, between them and the mountains.

"You are welcome here in peace," said the giant. "But there will be no tyranny in this world."

The big clouds returned to the old world in defeat, and when, as a result of these expeditions, they discovered their armies perished and themselves weakened and in poor health, they blamed the new giant for their condition and accused him of despotism.

In the new world, the unlimited opportunities kept all of the clouds cheerful and happy--for a while. In the midst of such abundance, a curious thing happened to the newly freed vassals: instead of capitalizing on their good fortune to build and make themselves strong, they chose to invest their time in frivolous games and bickering and other non-productive pursuits that fouled and wasted vast amounts of resources and left them with nothing to show for their efforts. When the giant, who towered above them, admonished them to settle their petty disputes and get on with the important business of developing their new home, they grumbled and complained that the giant was meddling in their affairs. The giant, who now stood at sixty thousand feet, had never stopped growing for a moment, for there was joy and freedom to be found in the effort required to push ever higher and wider.

But such industry, such power, is the surest way to create enemies in the cloud world.

"It's disgraceful how he shows and displays himself in such a vulgar uncouth manner," the other clouds said.

"He hogs all of the best air currents and keeps the best location for himself."

"It is he who prevents us from achieving strength and power."

"He treats us like children."

They had already forgotten what life was like in the old world. There were soon so many complaints against him that the giant had hardly any friends left, and he grew puzzled.

"If so many of the others say that I'm the cause of trouble, maybe they are right," he said. "After all, I am the largest strongest cloud in either world now, and even with all of the opportunity that exists, there is still a lot of misery among the clouds. Maybe it is my fault."

Finally, to assuage the guilt that he felt for being so successful, he began to help the others. He told them how he had achieved his status and offered to aid them with large donations of refined energy to get them started; but, although they accepted his donations greedily, they reviled him to the rest of cloudkind for extending charity to them. The more things progressed, the more bewildered the giant became and the more guilt he felt.

"I must indeed be a terrible cloud," he said. "I have grown so big and strong and the others are so weak; I must find some way to help them." And he redoubled his efforts.

But the more he tried, the worse things became. Finally, in desperation, he asked the others, "What do you expect of me? What must I do to gain your approval?"

"Give us your riches," they shouted back.

"But I have worked hard to get where I am. There are plenty of resources for you to grow as big as or even bigger than I if you will only stop complaining and get busy."

"That's unfair," they shouted. "We are weak and you are strong. You had all of the advantages because you were here first and occupied the only really good spot in the sky. If you divide what you have with us, so that we will all be the same, then we can begin to grow with you as happy, friendly equals."

Some of the bolder small clouds even began to cluster in close about the base of the bewildered giant.

"Things were so much simpler when I was small," the giant sighed. "It was easy to tell right from wrong then, but now everybody seems to have a different idea about justice."

In an effort to give the others a better chance, the giant gave up his position over the high peak and moved to a less favorable, but still excellent, location that the others had scorned. This, too, failed however; as soon as he vacated the favorable spot, a round of bickering and shoving and cursing broke out among the hordes of small clouds that tried to move in. The noisy scrap lasted for a long time, and when it was finally settled, nothing had changed; the occupants of the position continued to loll about and complain; they said that the giant had given them the territory because it was already ruined and there was nothing left for a cloud to live on. They knew that this was untrue, but truth was not something about which they cared much.

Meanwhile, the giant continued to grow at an almost embarrassing rate, even over the less favorable terrain. He stood now at the astounding height of seventy thousand feet. It was here that he decided to try one more time to gain the approval of his fellows: He decided to stop growing.

It was not easy to do, for there was a tremendous growth momentum to overcome; he had to quiet the pockets of turbulence, and allow the lightning to discharge within himself rather than strike the earth; he had to mute the sound of his thunder, and, most difficult of all, he had to stop growing upward.

His top flattened out into a vast, flat anvil-shaped hood that spread quickly far down wind and cast a dark shadow across the mountains and clouds far below. This hood drained and dissipated vast quantities of energy that flowed upward through the cloud like smoke being drawn up a chimney. The other clouds, who were in open revolt now against what they considered to be the mammoth cause of all their woes, were so busy attacking and clamoring far below at the base that they failed to notice the events above. When they detected a slackening in the fury of the wind, rain, and lightning at the giant's base, they cheered and shouted, "Now we've got him!", for they were silly and vain enough to believe that they could really affect the giant.

It was some time before they realized that they were assaulting a lifeless hulk.

They looked up in time to see a thin wispy gauze of ice crystals separate itself from the anvil hood and race rapidly away on the swift-moving jet stream. As they watched, a small disappointed voice wafted down to them: "If you want it so badly, you can have it."

The small clouds screamed in rage then, and in their temper, they tore the huge corpse to shreds and dispersed it into a shapeless, useless smudge that spread for great distances in all directions. They tore in among the remains, seeking to grab something of value; but without a spirit there was nothing. They were no better off than they were before, but at least they were all pretty equal; and nobody stood out much or did much of any thing except complain and steal from one another when they could.

High above and far out over a new plain, the frozen cloud spirit, small again, drifted and thought. He was disappointed and heartsick, and he did not much care what happened to him.

"Maybe freedom is not right for clouds," he sighed. "Maybe it's against cloud nature."

He was so depressed and despondent that he stayed in the jet stream for a long time; he didn't feel that he would ever want to come down again, even though he knew that he must eventually return to some sort of life.

Finally, far out at sea--he was over a sea by this time--he spotted a small island that rose alone from the blue water. He descended and approached the island from the windward side. It was only a dot on the vast ocean, being no more than five miles long and three miles wide; but there was a high cliff that forced the moist sea breezes aloft and created a nourishing updraft that rose a few hundred feet.

The small cloud, no longer frozen, stopped there, and he lives alone above the island to this day. His life is pleasant enough on balance, and he is not unhappy; but sometimes, when he thinks of the world he left behind, he sighs and weeps a bit; and the island is lush with grass and palm trees.