A conversation over coffee about clouds by two people who used to be very much in love (with each other) 15/08/2019

Once upon a time there were two people who used to be very much in love with each other, even after having been apart for quite a long time. One day in mid-March, this pair of young lovers were mooching around Newcastle's small city centre, enjoying being back in each other's company despite the light yet persistent drizzle. Looking for reasons to prolong their time together but wanting to keep out of the cold, they slipped into a coffee shop, and this is where the story begins.

The protagonists of our story were sat sipping on their coffees, gazing absently at the trickles of rain on the windows and hooded passersby when, as was usually the way, the girl ventured a topic of conversation. She was not only discontent but physically unable to sit in what would seem to anyone else like a comfortable silence, but the boy knew this and loved her for it. Even though it did make watching films together virtually impossible. 

The girl broke the silence by asking the boy why the clouds moved in the sky in that odd way that they did. At first, the boy didn't really take to the question, being distracted by something digital and probably sports related on his phone. 

When he did listen to the question the second time the girl asked—annoyingly persistent as she was known to be—he began to answer with some scientific textbook facts that didn't interest her at all. She hadn't wanted cold hard facts, she'd wanted a story. 

The girl, thinking in all cases that honesty was usually the best policy, told her companion this. And so, wanting to please her and make her happy as he so often was trying (and succeeding) to do, the boy sat still for a moment in quiet contemplation.

Eventually, just when the girl began to miss the sound of his voice and think the boy she loved would never speak again (she was known to err a little on the dramatic side), he began to tell her a story about the clouds that they could see through the window in their tiny coffee shop, empty apart from themselves.

The boy began his story, explaining to his expectant companion that all of the clouds had been at work, raining and shading, storming and shadowing. Most importantly though, they'd been forming shapes for people to gaze at, imagining that they were seeing famous people or baby animals while they whiled away the afternoon, falling in love with whoever they were with. As well as all the other various occupations that clouds do. This made the girl giggle as she remembered the countless summer afternoons they'd spent doing just that. 

“Therefore”, continued the boy, “the reasons that the clouds seemed to be moving so fast and with such apparent determination was not in fact, as common misconception and lousy science textbooks suggest, due to the wind. Rather, it was because it was cloud rush hour; all the clouds were wishing desperately to get home to their cloud families after a long, hard day at work.”

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, almost happily satisfied with this story, but of course she had ideas of her own.

"What if it's because there's actually a little green soldier man with a hat and lapels and a big moustache just for character, who stands all day huffing and puffing at the clouds to make sure they keep moving around the earth?"

"No that definitely can't be it," said the boy confidently, "because where would the little green soldier man live? He can't possibly live on one of the clouds, he'd just fall right through, no matter how little he was. And anyway” he added “the clouds would probably be a bit miffed at someone standing on them all the time. Especially when they're in a rush."

"Oh, ok," replied the girl a little sullenly, supposing that maybe he did have quite a valid point about that. She sat and thought for a moment about how best to go about this, surely not everything could be explained by scientific facts or silly cloud rush hour stories (although she had quite enjoyed that story), nor should it be.

"Ok," she began again to say to the boy, shifting herself in her seat so she was drawn up again from where she'd slouched in temporary defeat.

"So then how do you suppose it rains?" the girl asked confidently, crossing her arms over her chest as she was quite sure the boy couldn't possibly have an explanation for this one - although she was aching to hear another one of his stories. “Surely,” she carried on, “there must be some more interesting reason than the water cycle. Maybe there's a chonky little Ms Lady Bird who wears little flowery rain boots and a rain hat and flies around with her matching floral teapot, pouring water through the clouds to make it look to people like us that it's raining?”

This made the boy laugh, imagining how cute little Ms Lady Bird would be in all her chonky rainy glory. But, he needed to know how she would make the clouds grey and stormy like they sometimes were. 

Wanting to entertain the girl because he still loved her very much at this point (and knew she adored him), he decided to entertain the idea of little Ms Lady Bird. He suggested that maybe, accompanying her was a swarm of happy little bumble bees flying round with paintbrushes and miniature buckets of grey paint to paint the underneath of the clouds just before Ms Lady Bird came round with her teapot. 

The girl laughed delightedly at this idea and together the boy and the girl began to think of more characters to make lots of things happen in the world.

"What about a badger," the girl began excitedly, "who wears a little chequered waistcoat and spectacles. He's old and blind but he's happy, and he spends all day sleeping and all night lying on his back with his big strong claws against the underneath of the ground, pushing up the roots of the plants and the trees so that they grow big and tall?"

The boy loved this idea but said it wasn't fair that the old badger had to do all of the work, especially for great big oak trees as they must be really heavy. So maybe, little sparrows fly just above the ground and help pull the trees and the plants the rest of the way up.

"What about the sun?" asked the girl eagerly, loving the game they were playing.

"How does it shine so brightly every day?"

"Well that's obvious," replied the boy, throwing his arm casually across her soldiers as they exited the coffee shop, the Newcastle sky having cleared up a little while they were imagining all of their little characters.

"There’s a tiny bear stood on a tiny planet that's so small we can't see it in the solar system, not even with a telescope. This very little bear holds a torch to the moon all through the day so that it shines bright and becomes what we see as the sun. Either that or he flicks a tiny switch in his tiny house on his tiny planet, that switches the sun on like a lightbulb" he shrugged. 

This explanation delighted the girl even more than any of the others and her eyes shone with a light almost as bright as the bear’s little torch as she gazed up at the boy whom she loved so much. As the couple ambled down Northumberland street on their way home, the clouds continued to rush home to their families, and Ms Lady Bird got to work. 

Whatever happened to them next, they knew they’d always have their own little world up there in the clouds.