Lit eZine Vol 7 | p-10 | FICTION | Cloud People

FLASH FICTION

CLOUD PEOPLE
by Howard Moon

This morning sitting outside
enjoying tea
I saw the image of a strange
creature in the sky
Thought nothing of it
until I realized
I had just had a fifteen-minute
conversation with it

Sitting across from me a most distinctive looking woman. Just moments before I had seen her in the sky among the clouds. She was a Shiwanna, a bringer of rain, one of the cloud spirits. We were an unlikely looking couple—me the color of red clay the Creator had used to form my people. She, light white almost transparent with the color and texture of the clouds she had come from. Her blonde almost white hair looked as if it was constantly damp, as if she had just come in from the rain. Which she had. She was a cloud spirit, a bringer of rain. I saw her earlier dancing among the clouds, playing hide-and-seek. Darting from cloud to cloud hiding behind them when she could. I had been enjoying a morning cup of brewed yaupon tea when she quietly sat down at the table beside me.
“I saw you watching me,” She said.
“How did you know to look for me.”
“I was remembering Grandmother, remembering the stories she told us when I was a child,” I
answered.
“I saw the rainbow and looked to see if there were any rainbow riders about.”
“Yes, I took the Rainbow Express this morning,” She quipped a smile forming on her lips.
“I have always wondered why the creator has spirits as beautiful as yourself, spend so much of your time in darkness among the dead,” I asked?
With a smile never leaving her lips, she explained that spending most of their time among the dead made them treasure every chance to roam among the living. It was a privilege to soar high, playing amidst the clouds, one spirit reminded the other, a rare gift among the spirits.
Unlike others, they alone were blessed with the honor of riding the rainbow. As they traveled through dark realms and back into the light, they fulfilled a unique purpose, bringing life to the world below. They provided rain for crops, water for people—a vital gift, the essence of life.
“My child, do not be sad for us,” she said. “We are the spirits of the clouds, riders of the rainbow, weaving life into the world.”
A rainbow formed in the sky as the rain ebbed. Then she was gone, riding away into the clouds.