literature

Dream Cloud

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Her tiny little paws almost left no mark on the wet ground.

The sky was now clear, but the road was muddy and covered with water pools: apparently, there had been a rainstorm not long time before.

As soon as she walked out of the shadows of the trees, the sun stroke her and she immediately shut her eyes, frightened, not used to its brightness.

Besides, she was just born.

She stood still, shivering, with closed eyes, for several minutes. Then she realized nothing was going to hurt her, and lifted the lid over her right eye: even if the sky was darkening to dusk, the sun still lighted it brightly in the wonderful shades of the sunset, and the clearing where she had just arrived was empty. Reassured, she started enjoying the warmth on her back; she shook the raindrops’ water off her woolly, soft body. A sudden, pristine jingle filled the silence: she looked down, spotting a shining bell tied to her neck with a light red ribbon. She blinked: it was beautiful. She shook again, and again the bell jingled happily. Another sound joined in, a laughter, her own crystalline, joyful laughter. She started jumping around in the clearing, laughing and jingling, and when she fell on her back she started rolling on the wet grass, laughing even loudly.

“Look at what we have here! What a strange creature are you?” asked a genuine surprised voice. She stopped and looked in front of her: on the branch of a tree sat a squirrel, and he was staring at her. She blinked, not even knowing she could talk.

“Well, are you deaf? I have never seen something like you”, he trailed off, sticking towards her as much as he could. “You have a lion’s ears and a cat’s muzzle, but I have never seen pink-eyed cats; you have a pony’s tail, but no pony could have it so colorful, and you have horns, and your whole body looks like a cloud.”

“What is a cloud?” asked she, surprising herself.

“So, you actually can talk!” cried the squirrel, “Well, you see, a cloud is a white, big bush in the sky, but it seems much more fluffier than those on earth”.

“What nonsense are you talking about?!” butted in another voice, and an owl came flying to sit beside the squirrel, who, alarmed, ran down to a lower branch. The owl though took no notice of it as he started to explain. “A cloud, my dear damsel, is what originates rain. Surely, you have seen the rain, haven’t you?”

She shook her head, making the bell jingle softly.

“What! What about the rainstorm of before? Everything around here is wet because of the rain! How could you not know?”

The squirrel sniffed the air and decided to come closer to the strange new creature, running down the tree. “Maybe if you look at yourself in a pond, you’ll understand” he proposed, guiding her to the closest pond. She looked.

“Oh!”

The muzzle that was staring at her from the pond was white and round, with rose, chubby cheeks. It had wide and pink eyes which gazed in wonder at her, and was surrounded by a woolly, fluffy, curly mane, of a soft light blue, with hues of white across it. On the top of the head, popped out from the mane a pair of pink and red striped horns and, a little lower on the side, white ears of the same fur of the muzzle. Right under her chin, the golden bell shined brightly upon a strange and white piece of clothe that we humans call a poncho, but that she had not a clue of what it was. It looked nice, though: it had colorful little things sticking out and, despite the fact that she had rolled herself in the ground, not a patch of dirt spoiled her perfectly clean poncho, nor the rest of her woolly body. She turned on the spot, admiring herself.

It was then when she realized she had a tail: what a beautiful, majestic tail! It wasn’t similar to her fluffy legs, it was straight and long and colored in three stripes of light red, pink and light blue. She couldn’t move it but for the part attached to her backside, but even so, she started swinging it faster and faster, and began to laugh again.

“I am beautiful!” she cried.

“Well, wow, how modest!” muttered annoyed the squirrel. “Well, I think you’re weird, and that you’re a patchwork of weirdness!” he exclaimed, deciding that the new arrived needed a good scowl to stop showing off. Then he left fast as only a squirrel at dusk can, and went to hide in his nest in the tree.

At his words she had stopped bouncing around, suddenly silent and disheartened. Her big eyes scooped in the already dark clearing for the squirrel, without finding him, and filled with tears. Was she weird? Why did he have to tell her off with those harsh words? She knew nothing of the world around her, and she knew nothing even about herself!

A tear ran down her cheek, followed immediately by another. The wind began to blow.

“Oh! Here, here! No need to cry!” said the owl, feeling awkward. “Come on, dear damsel, don’t listen to that envious little brat! What would your parents say? Where are they? Let’s go find’em! You cant’ stay out in the clearing at night” he added, reasonably.

“Parents…?” she repeated weakly through the tears.

The poor little thing! How could she know what a parent was? She was born in a rainstorm, and now her tears were announcing another one. The wind blew stronger, making the owl shriek as he almost fell to the ground. He shrieked louder, seeing then the “dear damsel” raised by the wind. She was so light that no matter how she tried, she just could not resist to it.

She shrieked too, while the wind carried her away over the trees and her bell jingled madly on her chest. The shout “Dear damseeeel!” soon faded in the howls of the incoming rainstorm. The sun had disappeared, and the sky was now black and frightening. She was covered in wool, but she shivered for the cold gusts and the raindrops that had begun to fall. She cried more, scared and lonely.

The storm passed only when, too tired to do anything, she stopped crying, and the wind laid her on the grass, at the end of the wood. She stumbled, unable to stand, and fell on her belly, limbs spread. Her eyelids felt so heavy! But she just couldn’t sleep! The ground was hard, and she was cold, and so, so scared! Her beautiful woolly fur was drenched with water, but she had no strength to shake it off.

“Ooooh! There’s someone here outside! What are you doing here, sweetie? Are you lost?”

She looked around, but she saw nobody. There was only a queer little light bouncing around her.

“So, sweetie?”

The light was speaking, she realized!

“What are you?”

“Why, I should ask you the same! I am just a common firefly, you are really a rare thing to see down here!”

“I… don’t know what I am” answered she, sad. The light stopped in front of her.

“You look really tired, sweetie. What about a nice sleep, mh? You could find answers in the dreams, you know.”

“What are dreams?”

“Why, dreams are… are…” The firefly fell silent, then started bouncing even faster than before (which is the way of laughing of fireflies).

“Why, why! Dreams are actually a real mystery!”

She stared at the firefly, confused, while it calmed down.

“I can only say that dreams are what happens when you’re asleep. They are… a whole new world created by your thoughts. It’s fun! And sometimes it’s useful, it makes you understand what you really want from the bottom of your heart.”

The firefly paused.

“What’s your name, sweetie?” it asked then.

“I have none. What’s a name?” she moaned. She really felt tired.

“It’s how others call you. Well, if you have none, then I will give you one! Let’s see… Ah! Gotcha! What do you think about ‘Dreamcloud’, sweetie?”

She raised her eyes in wonder. She actually liked it, even if she had never dreamed nor seen a cloud.

The firefly seemed satisfied. “Well, then, Dreamcloud! I will keep guard here while you sleep, so you’ll feel safe and can start dreaming! How about it?”

Dreamcloud nodded, grateful, and suddenly her eyelids fell on her tired eyes. The ground was terribly hard and wet, but she was finally sleeping.

She dreamt. In her dream, the sun was shining through amazing hues of pink, red and orange, and the wind that brushed her mane was cool and gentle. The ground wasn’t hard, actually, the ground wasn’t even there! She stand on a white, soft something that looked really like her fur. She felt at peace, of a kind of peace that fills your heart with warm joy. In the dream, her bell jingled in the wind.

She woke up because of the strong light.

She blinked several times before she saw she was no more outside the forest. Where was she? Where was the firefly?

Dreamcloud gasped in awe as she gazed around here: no trees, no grass, but a never-ending sea of blue and shades of pink, exactly like the one she dreamed of. Her paws were plunging in a white thing, soft and curly as her wool. Far, far under it, she could see the treetops of the forest. Was she hovering in the sky? She realized immediately what was the with thing she was standing upon: a cloud.

She was standing on a cloud!

Any other animal would have been scared, but not Dreamcloud. She felt overwhelmed with happiness, and somehow she felt at home. That was the world she was born for. It was probably the wind that, once again, had raised her in her sleep to the sky and carried her over the cloud, back to her true place.

She started laughing and crying at the same time, relieved. She plunged her muzzle in the curls of the cloud and rolled herself in it. Before falling asleep again, she whispered “Mama”, with the sweetest voice in the world.

Her dream had become true.

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