The Cloud Girl

She keeps the cloud in a jar.

The jar is with her all through the day. When she sleeps, the jar is kept right next to her bed.While eating the jar sits pretty beside her cereal box. Even when she steps outside, the jar is safely placed inside her grey backpack. No one has ever seen her without her grey backpack.While her flesh and blood self is her ‘here’, the jar within her backpack is her ‘there’. She clings so dearly to her backpack maybe because her ‘here’ does not exist without her ‘there’.

It was a pleasant day. She parked her bike at her usual spot, and carefully manoeuvred her way through the freshly sowed rice field, towards the tree. The birds no longer flew away seeing her come, she is now one of them. She carefully lifted the veil of the thick foliage and stepped inside. The familiar musty smell of the mossy bark welcomed her and she felt at home. She sat there for a while, her back resting on the thick bark of the tree. Hundreds of Asian golden weavers made their nest on the tree. The nests neatly made, hung upside down. If seen from a distance one can hardly see any leaves on the tree, as they are all hidden behind these nests.

She opened the backpack and took out the jar. She lifted it carefully and stared at it. The fat, fluffy cloud was resting peacefully inside, waiting patiently to come out and fly...just like her. She placed her hand ever so gently on the lid, and waited. Her heart was racing, like every other time. She unscrewed the lid, gently pulled out a fluff of cloud and placed it on her palm. Her heart still racing, she closed her eyes, 1...2....3 and there was a massive jolt as she felt herself being pushed down a rocky cliff, her body hitting the rocks and being broken into microscopic pieces. The excruciating pain blinded her and she could hear herself scream her lungs out. And like every other time, just when she thought she will hit the solid rock bottom, a gush of wind picked her up like some strewn leaf and hurled her towards the limitless sky. The wind was soo strong she could feel the parts of her body ripping apart and being scattered in all direction. And then she saw it, the sparkling rainbow filling the sky with its splendor. She knew that the pain is over...that she has reached. Flopped on a chunky fluff of cloud she looked around and absorbed the tranquility of this world. Now she is ready...ready to change yet another child’s dream, to bring smile on their innocent sleeping faces.

Yes, she is the ordinary next-door girl who rides on her cloud and enters into the dreamland of little children and turns their dream into happy places. Like, if there is a frightening fire-spitting dragon ready to scare a little one in his dream, she walks in and changes the deadly dragon to a cuddly wide-eyed puppy and brings a smile on the face of the sleeping child.

Roya (Persian word for Dream) was 3 days old, when her parents abandoned her inside the city planetarium. She often wonders what prompted them to the choice of place. The sky, clouds and stars had protected her ever since. They had been her family. She grew up in an orphanage where Sister Martha had been very kind to her and the other girls. On Roya’s 14th birthday she woke up and found the jar with clouds at her bedside. Since then her secret rides on cloud has begun.

Today Roya steps into the dream of 4 year old baby girl, Shy. Her dreamland is a bright sunny park with gleaming rainbow and daisies. Happy birds are chirping all around and colourful deers and peacocks are playing near the waterfall. But just as she looked behind, she saw a writhing, spiteful huge snake uncoiling its fang. Roya quickly pointed her finger towards the venomous giant and whispered:

Dream is beautiful

Dream is pure

Let the little girl sleep safe and sure

The snake immediately turned into a twirly garland of daisies and little Shy slept with not a single wrinkle on her forehead. There were couple of more dragons to slay and hooded witches to turn into cherubic angels. Then Roya climbed back on her cloud and after a rocky journey of falling and rising, returned back to the mossy ground of her real world.

She took the cloud and carefully placed it back inside the jar and tightened the lid. She then placed the jar inside her backpack and stepped outside the foliage into the field. The sun is like a disc of gold, settling cosily between the two far-away mountains. Roya looked up at the sky where a fat, fluffy cloud is sailing lazily and wondered how long will she keep looking for her dream while traveling into the dreams of others. 

When will she get to have a dream of her own.

--- The End ---