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The clouds whispered in my ears. They called to me silently, a voice so quiet but not so still, rather ever-changing. They told me to go, run away, feel the wind whistling in my ears. They told me to leave it all behind. The cloud in the shape of a train told me to charge forth.
The cloud in the shape of an elm tree told me to bend and keep on bending, I would never break.
The cloud in the shape of a river bend told me to flow, and I would never cease.
I stood in the field and let the clouds whisper into my ears, taking in the words. They tickled the hairs at the base of my neck and stroked the folds of flesh. I closed my eyes and we all laughed together, a great belly laugh from deep below. They roared with me, sending laughter into the heavens. The clouds spread their arms, and I spread my arms and we shook the earth together.
Then I lay down, exhausted from the laughter, and let the ants crawl over my arms and up around my ankles. I could feel them with my eyes closed like a tickle that ran this way and that in so many arcs and circles that I lost track of which ones were where.
The long grasses that blew around me in the breeze tickled my forehead and I wondered whether there were ants on my forehead too, or if it was just the grass. The clouds looked down on me and watched, they too could see the ants running around in circles and then settling as if they too were exhausted from the laughter. Together, the clouds and the ants and the blowing grasses and I rested. As I fell asleep the clouds whispered words into my ears that formed into dreams. They picked me up and carried me with them on their backs, lifting me towards the stars. The great blackness of sky tumbled into my body, filling me with all the stars and moons of the universe, making my body feel so expansive and alive, a million beating hearts and a million blinking stars reverberating inside of me.
After many long minutes, the clouds brought me back down to the ground, back to the field with the blowing grasses and the sleeping ants. In my ears, the clouds whispered goodbye and floated away to look after other fields and other ants and other blowing grasses.
I lay in the field, my eyes now open, watching the stars dance and feeling them inside of me blinking in and out with the beating of my heart. I reached out and took hold of the grasses that bumped against my forehead. I waved the ends of the grasses towards the stars, towards the rising moon, saying hello, calling out a welcome to the night. The air grew cooler and I stood up.
I opened my mouth and let all of the stars and moons pour out with a silent roar and join their sisters and brothers and cousins in the sky.