Speaker 1: US Studios the Cloud Factory. Cyrus had been watching clouds
Speaker 1: for as long as she could remember. It started when
Speaker 1: she was very young, three or four years old, lying
Speaker 1: on a blanket in the back yard while her mother
Speaker 1: hung laundry on the line. The sheets billowed in the wind,
Speaker 1: white and enormous, and Cyrus would look up at them,
Speaker 1: and then look up at the sky and see the
Speaker 1: same shapes, the same whiteness, the same slow, patient movement,
Speaker 1: and she would say, Mamma, the sheets are flying, and
Speaker 1: her mother would laugh and say, not quite, sweetheart, those
Speaker 1: are clouds. And Cyrus would look again and try to
Speaker 1: understand the difference, but she could not, because to her
Speaker 1: they were the same thing, the same white, soft, drifting thing.
Speaker 1: And she decided then that clouds were the sky's laundry,
Speaker 1: hung out to dry on a line that stretched from
Speaker 1: one horizon to the other. By the time she was six,
Speaker 1: Cyrus had learned the names of the clouds. Her mother
Speaker 1: had bought her a children's book about weather, a thin,
Speaker 1: glossy volume with pictures of clouds on every page, and
Speaker 1: Cyrus had studied it the way other children studied dinosaur
Speaker 1: names or baseball statistics, memorizing the shapes and the words
Speaker 1: that went with them. Cumulus were the big, puffy ones,
Speaker 1: the ones that looked like pillows or cotton balls, or
Speaker 1: the tops of scoops of vanilla ice cream. They appeared
Speaker 1: on warm afternoons, rising from the horizon in great white towers,
Speaker 1: their tops flat and spreading, their bases dark and flat,
Speaker 1: and they drifted across the sky in slow majettutuk formations,
Speaker 1: casting shadows on the fields below that moved like dark
Speaker 1: ships across a green sea. Cyrus were different. They were
Speaker 1: high and thin, wispy streaks of white that looked like
Speaker 1: brush strokes on a blue canvas, or like someone had
Speaker 1: torn a cotton ball into thin strips and laid them
Speaker 1: across the sky. They appeared in autumn, when the air
Speaker 1: was cool and dry, and they moved fast, faster than
Speaker 1: any other cloud type, racing across the sky from west
Speaker 1: to east, while the cumulus below them drifted slowly in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction. Serious clouds were made of ice crystals,
Speaker 1: the book said, not water droplets, and this made them
Speaker 1: different from all the other clouds, lighter, more delicate, more
Speaker 1: like something that belonged to a higher, thinner world. Stratus
Speaker 1: clouds were the ones that brought rain. They were low
Speaker 1: and gray and flat, covering the sky like a blanket,
Speaker 1: hiding the sun and the blue and everything else. And
Speaker 1: when they gathered thick enough, they released their rain in long,
Speaker 1: slow curtains that fell from the sky like curtains of
Speaker 1: silver threat. Cyrus did not mind stratus clouds. They brought rain,
Speaker 1: and rain brought puddles, and puddles were for splashing, and
Speaker 1: splashing was one of Cyrus's favorite things. But the cloud
Speaker 1: she liked best was the one she had invented herself.
Speaker 1: She called it a factory cloud, and it was not
Speaker 1: a real type of cloud at all, but a game
Speaker 1: she played with her imagination, a way of making sense
Speaker 1: of the sky that was both scientific and magical at
Speaker 1: the same time. The factory cloud was a place high
Speaker 1: above the world where clouds were made not by nature,
Speaker 1: not by evaporation and condensation and the slow, invisible processes
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere, but by actual workers, tiny people who
Speaker 1: lived in a factory in the sky, a factory made
Speaker 1: of cloud stuff itself, with cloud walls and cloud roofs
Speaker 1: and cloud windows that looked down on the world below.
Speaker 1: She had first imagined the Factory when she was four,
Speaker 1: lying on the same blanket in the same field, watching
Speaker 1: the same clouds. Her grandmother had told her that clouds
Speaker 1: were made by nature, by the sun heating the water,
Speaker 1: and the water rising and the water cooling and forming
Speaker 1: into droplets. And Cyrus had listened and understood, and also
Speaker 1: thought that this explanation was not quite complete, that there
Speaker 1: was something more, something behind the invisible processes, something that
Speaker 1: had intention and craft and care. The Factory was her
Speaker 1: way of filling in the gap, of giving a face
Speaker 1: and a name and a purpose to the invisible forces
Speaker 1: that shaped the sky. It was not science, she knew that,
Speaker 1: but it was not fantasy either. It was something in between,
Speaker 1: a story that made the sky feel less random and
Speaker 1: more like a place where things were made with purpose,
Speaker 1: where every cloud had been designed and shaped and released
Speaker 1: by someone who cared about getting it right. The Factory
Speaker 1: was Cyrus's invention, but it felt real to her, as
Speaker 1: real as the field she lay in and the grass
Speaker 1: beneath her back and the sound of the creek running
Speaker 1: through the valley below. She could see it in her mind,
Speaker 1: a great white building floating above the clouds, with chimneys
Speaker 1: that puffed out vapor, and doors that opened to release
Speaker 1: new clouds into the sky. The workers inside were small,
Speaker 1: no bigger than mayi, and they moved with quiet efficiency,
Speaker 1: carrying buckets of cloud stuff and shaping it with their hands,
Speaker 1: rolling it into balls, and then flattening it, stretching it,
Speaker 1: pulling it into shapes the way a baker shapes dough,
Speaker 1: the way a potter shapes clay. On this particular afternoon
Speaker 1: in late June, Cyrus was lying in the big field
Speaker 1: behind her grandmother's house, a field that stretched from the
Speaker 1: edge of the garden into the creek at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hill. The grass was tall and green, still
Speaker 1: wet from the morning dew, and it smelt sweet and earthy,
Speaker 1: like rain and sunlight mixed together. The field was full
Speaker 1: of wild flowers, yellow buttercups and white daisies, and the
Speaker 1: occasional purple clover, and the bees moved among them in slow,
Speaker 1: deliberate loops, their wings catching the sunlight and turning it
Speaker 1: into tiny, flashing sparks. The field was alive with small movements.
Speaker 1: A ladybug crawled along a blade of grass near Cyrus's hand,
Speaker 1: its red shell bright against the green. A butterfly orange
Speaker 1: and black, drifted past, riding the thermals that rose from
Speaker 1: the warm earth. Somewhere in the grass, a cricket chirped,
Speaker 1: a steady, rhythmic sound that was almost musical, and the
Speaker 1: sound blended with the hum of the bees and the
Speaker 1: murmur of the creek, and the distant call of a
Speaker 1: hawk circling above the hill. Cyrus lay on her back
Speaker 1: with her arms spread wide. Cyrus lay on her back
Speaker 1: with her arms spread wide, her fingers buried in the grass,
Speaker 1: and looked up at the sky. It was a perfect
Speaker 1: cloud day. The sky was deep blue from horizon to horizon,
Speaker 1: and scattered across it like someone had tossed them from
Speaker 1: a great height, were the clouds, big white, puffy cumulus clouds,
Speaker 1: their tops rising in great rounded towers, their bases flat
Speaker 1: and dark, casting shadows on the fields below. One cloud
Speaker 1: directly above her was shaped like a ship, its bow
Speaker 1: pointing west, its stern trailing awake of smaller clouds. Another
Speaker 1: farther to the north, looked like a sleeping cat, its
Speaker 1: head tucked under one paw, its tail curling behind it.
Speaker 1: And a third, low on the eastern horizon, was shaped
Speaker 1: exactly like a factory, its walls tall and square, its
Speaker 1: roof flat, with two chimney like protrusions rising from the top.
Speaker 1: There it is, Cyrus, whispered the factory. She had been
Speaker 1: looking for the factory cloud all morning. She had lain
Speaker 1: in the field since breakfast, watching the sky, waiting for
Speaker 1: a cloud that looked like a building, And now here
Speaker 1: it was, sitting on the eastern horizon like a post
Speaker 1: cart from the sky, its factory shape unmistakable. She rolled
Speaker 1: on to her side and propped her head on her hand,
Speaker 1: studying the cloud more carefully. The walls were white and solid,
Speaker 1: catching the sunlight, and the roof was flat and wide,
Speaker 1: like the top of a box. The two chimneys rose
Speaker 1: from the center, and from the top of one chimney,
Speaker 1: a thin stream of vapor was drifting upward, like smoke
Speaker 1: from a real factory. And Cyrus smiled. Because the factory
Speaker 1: was working today, the workers inside were busy making clouds.
Speaker 1: She imagined the scene inside. The workers would be at
Speaker 1: their stations, each one responsible for a different type of cloud.
Speaker 1: At the cumulus station, a group of workers would be
Speaker 1: gathered around a large round mold, packing cloud stuff into it,
Speaker 1: smoothing the surface shaping it into a perfect dome. The
Speaker 1: cloud stuff was soft and white, like foam or cotton,
Speaker 1: or the inside of a marshmallow, and it could be
Speaker 1: shaped into anything. The workers pressed it and pulled it
Speaker 1: and rolled it, and when the cloud was the right shape,
Speaker 1: they carried it to the door and pushed it out
Speaker 1: into the sky, where it caught the wind and drifted away,
Speaker 1: rising slowly, growing larger as it rose, becoming the cumulus
Speaker 1: cloud that would float across the sky for the rest
Speaker 1: of the day. At the Cirrus station, different workers handled
Speaker 1: different material. Cirrus cloud stuff was thinner, more delicate, made
Speaker 1: of ice crystals instead of water droplets, and it had
Speaker 1: to be handled with care. The workers there used fine tools,
Speaker 1: tiny brushes and combs to shape the ice crystals into long,
Speaker 1: thin strands that they laid across the sky like threads
Speaker 1: on a loom. When they were finished, the cirrus cloud
Speaker 1: looked like a brushstroke or a feather, or the trail
Speaker 1: of a finger drawn across wet paint, and it moved quickly,
Speaker 1: carried by the high winds that blew at the top
Speaker 1: of the atmosphere. At the Stratus station, the workers were
Speaker 1: preparing a rain cloud. This was more complex work. The
Speaker 1: cloud had to be thick enough and heavy enough to
Speaker 1: hold a large amount of water, and it had to
Speaker 1: be shaped in a way that would allow the water
Speaker 1: to fall evenly. When the time came, the workers packed
Speaker 1: the cloud stuff tightly, layer upon layer, compressing it, building
Speaker 1: up the density, and when the cloud was ready, they
Speaker 1: released it into the sky, where it spread out, flat
Speaker 1: and gray, covering the sun, casting the world below into shadow.
Speaker 1: Cyrus loved the Stratus station best. There was something dramatic
Speaker 1: about it, something powerful, the idea that a cloud could
Speaker 1: hold so much water and then release it all at once,
Speaker 1: flooding the fields and filling the creeks and turning the
Speaker 1: dust to mud. She imagined the workers inside the Stratus
Speaker 1: cloud standing at their stations, watching the water build up,
Speaker 1: and when the cloud was heavy enough, one of them
Speaker 1: would pull a lever and the bottom of the cloud
Speaker 1: would open and the rain would fall, and the workers
Speaker 1: would watch it fall with satisfaction, knowing they had done
Speaker 1: their job well. She lay back in the grass and
Speaker 1: continued watching the sky. The factory cloud was drifting slowly westward,
Speaker 1: carried by the wind, and as it moved it was
Speaker 1: changing shape. The flat roof was rounding at the edges,
Speaker 1: the chidden protrusions were melting into the body of the cloud,
Speaker 1: and the whole structure was softening, becoming less like a
Speaker 1: building and more like a hill, or a mountain, or
Speaker 1: a great white wave. Frozen in midcrest. Cyrus knew this
Speaker 1: was the factory, transforming the workers inside, reshaping it as
Speaker 1: it moved, adapting it to the wind, making sure it
Speaker 1: would last through the afternoon before it diss into the
Speaker 1: thinner air near the horizon. She closed her eyes and
Speaker 1: listened to the sounds of the field. The bees were
Speaker 1: humming among the wild flowers, a low, steady drone that
Speaker 1: was almost hypnotic. The creek was murmuring at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the hill, a soft, continuous babble that sounded like voices,
Speaker 1: like the creek was talking to itself about the stones
Speaker 1: it passed over and the fish that swam in its pools.
Speaker 1: A bird was singing somewhere in the trees along the
Speaker 1: fence line, a complex, bubbling song that rose and fell
Speaker 1: in pitch, pausing between phrases, as if the bird were
Speaker 1: composing the song as it went, making it up from
Speaker 1: moment to moment, never singing the same song twice, Cyrus
Speaker 1: opened her eyes and looked at the sky again. The
Speaker 1: ship had drifted farther west, and its bow was beginning
Speaker 1: to dissolve, the sharp edge softening into a round, amorphous mass,
Speaker 1: But the stern was still intact, and the wake of
Speaker 1: smaller cloud still trailed behind it. And Cyrus imagined the
Speaker 1: ship sailing across the blue sea of the sky, its
Speaker 1: captain at the wheel, its crew on deck, all of
Speaker 1: them made of cloud stuff, all of them drifting westward
Speaker 1: toward the setting sun. She thought about what it would
Speaker 1: be like to work in the cloud factory. She imagined
Speaker 1: herself as one of the workers, small and efficient, moving
Speaker 1: through the cloud walls from room to room, checking the molds,
Speaker 1: testing the cloud stuff, making adjustments. She would work at
Speaker 1: the cumulus station, decided shaping the big, puffy clouds that
Speaker 1: everyone loved, the ones that children pointed at and named,
Speaker 1: the ones that cast the best shadows, the ones that
Speaker 1: looked like animals and ships and factories and everything else
Speaker 1: that the human mind could see in their white, shifting shapes.
Speaker 1: The best part of the job, she imagined, would be
Speaker 1: the delivery. After a cloud was finished. The workers would
Speaker 1: carry it to the door and push it out into
Speaker 1: the sky, and Cyrus would stand at the edge and
Speaker 1: watch it drift away, rising, slowly, growing larger, becoming something
Speaker 1: that would be seen by everyone in the town below.
Speaker 1: She would watch it until it was just a white
Speaker 1: speck on the blue horizon, and then she would go
Speaker 1: back to her station and start the next one, knowing
Speaker 1: that somewhere down there some one was looking up at
Speaker 1: the cloud she had made and seeing something beautiful in it.
Speaker 1: Her grandmother called from the porch, Cyrus, come have some
Speaker 1: lemonade to Cyrus rolled to her feet and brushed the
Speaker 1: grass from her shirt. The field was warm around her,
Speaker 1: the grass bending in the breeze, the wild flowers nodding
Speaker 1: their heads. She walked up the hill toward the house,
Speaker 1: glancing back at the sky one more time. The factory
Speaker 1: cloud had drifted farther west, and it was smaller now,
Speaker 1: its shape less defined, but it was still there, still working,
Speaker 1: still making clouds for the world below. On the porch,
Speaker 1: her grandmother was sitting in a rocking chair with two
Speaker 1: glasses of lemonade on the table beside her. The lemonade
Speaker 1: was pale yellow with ice cubes floating on top, and
Speaker 1: a thin slice of lemon on the rim of each glass.
Speaker 1: The porch was shaded by a vine that grew over
Speaker 1: the trellis at the corner, thick with green leaves and
Speaker 1: small white flowers that smelled faintly of jasmine. But the
Speaker 1: rocking chairs were old, made of wood that had been
Speaker 1: painted white years ago and had since chipped and faded
Speaker 1: to a soft, weathered gray, and they creaked gently when
Speaker 1: they rocked, a sound that Cyrus found comforting, like the
Speaker 1: house was breathing. A humming bird appeared at the vine,
Speaker 1: its wings a blur, its throat a flash of iridescent green,
Speaker 1: and it hovered at one of the white flowers for
Speaker 1: a moment before dardam away, disappearing into the afternoon light.
Speaker 1: Cyrus sat in the other rocking chair and picked up
Speaker 1: her glass and took a sip. The lemonade was cold
Speaker 1: and tart, the lemon sharp on her tongue, and she
Speaker 1: drank deeply, feeling the liquid slide down her throat and
Speaker 1: cool her from the inside. See any good clouds, her
Speaker 1: grandmother asked the factory. Cyrus said, it's out there today.
Speaker 1: I saw the chimneys Her grandmother looked toward the eastern horizon,
Speaker 1: where the factory cloud was still visible, a pale white
Speaker 1: shape against the blue. I see it, she said, It
Speaker 1: does look like a factory. What are they making today?
Speaker 1: Cumulus big ones for the afternoon. Her grandmother nodded, that's good,
Speaker 1: we could use a few more. The sky looks a
Speaker 1: bit empty on the western side. Cyrus looked west. Her
Speaker 1: grandmother was right. The sky above the western hills was
Speaker 1: almost entirely blue, without a single cloud, and the sun
Speaker 1: beat down on the fields and the rooftops and the road,
Speaker 1: making the air shim with heat. But the factory cloud
Speaker 1: was drifting that way, and behind it, smaller clouds were
Speaker 1: following cumulus that the workers had pushed out of the
Speaker 1: factory doors throughout the morning, and they were rising and growing,
Speaker 1: catching the afternoon thermals, and by evening the western sky
Speaker 1: would be full of them. Grandma Cyra said, do you
Speaker 1: think there's really a factory up there? Her grandmother rocked
Speaker 1: slowly in her chair, sipping her lemonade. I think, She
Speaker 1: said that the sky is a very creative place, and
Speaker 1: that it has more imagination than most people give it
Speaker 1: credit for. Whether there's an actual factory with actual workers.
Speaker 1: I can't say, but I think there's something up there
Speaker 1: that likes to make beautiful things, and I think it
Speaker 1: likes it when someone down here notices. Cyrus considered this.
Speaker 1: She liked the idea that the sky was creative, that
Speaker 1: it liked to make things that it noticed when some
Speaker 1: one was watching. It made the relationship between herself and
Speaker 1: the sky feel more personal, more like a conversation than
Speaker 1: a one way observation. She looked up at the factory
Speaker 1: cloud again and waved a small quick wave, and she
Speaker 1: thought she saw the cloud shift slightly, a tiny puff
Speaker 1: of vapor rising from one of the chimneys, like a
Speaker 1: wave back. She had been lying there for about an
Speaker 1: hour when she heard footsteps in the grass. She turned
Speaker 1: her head and saw her friend Oliver walking up the
Speaker 1: hill from the creek, his shoes wet, his hair sticking
Speaker 1: to his forehead with sweat. Oliver lived two houses down,
Speaker 1: and he was the only person Cyrus knew who shared
Speaker 1: her interest in clouds, though his approach was different. Where
Speaker 1: Cyrus imagined factories and workers, Oliver saw patterns and shapes,
Speaker 1: and he had a gift for finding faces in the clouds.
Speaker 1: Entire faces, with eyes and noses and mouths, as if
Speaker 1: the clouds were portraits of people who had never existed.
Speaker 1: There you are, Oliver said, dropping into the grass beside her.
Speaker 1: I've been looking for you all morning. Your mom said
Speaker 1: you were up here staring at the sky again. I'm
Speaker 1: not just staring, Cyrus said, I'm watching the factory. Oliver
Speaker 1: lay on his back and looked up. Which one is
Speaker 1: the factory that one? Cyrus pointed to the eastern horizon,
Speaker 1: where the factory cloud was still visible. See the chimneys.
Speaker 1: Oliver squinted, I see a hat, like a top hat.
Speaker 1: The cloud is wearing a hat. Cyrus looked again. Oliver
Speaker 1: was right in a way. The factory cloud did look
Speaker 1: like a hat, the flat roof like the brim, and
Speaker 1: the chimney protrusions like the crown. But she preferred her interpretation.
Speaker 1: It's a factory. She said. The workers are making cumulus
Speaker 1: clouds today. What kind of cumulus big ones for the afternoon?
Speaker 1: Oliver nodded. He had learned not to argue with Cyrus
Speaker 1: about the factory. The first time she had told him
Speaker 1: about it, he had said there was no factory in
Speaker 1: the sky that clouds were just water vapor, and Cyrus
Speaker 1: had looked at him with such disappointment that he had
Speaker 1: immediately changed his mind and said maybe there was a
Speaker 1: factory after all. Now he played along, and sometimes he
Speaker 1: even added to the story, imagining new stations in the factory,
Speaker 1: new types of clouds being made, new workers with new jobs.
Speaker 1: I think they're making a thunderhead today too, Oliver said,
Speaker 1: see that one to the south, it's growing. Cyrus looked south.
Speaker 1: The thunderhead was in indeed growing, its top rising higher,
Speaker 1: its base darkening, and she could see the anvil shape
Speaker 1: beginning to form, flat and sharp, like the top of
Speaker 1: a mushroom. The workers at the thunderhead station, she said,
Speaker 1: they're the best ones. They can make a cloud that
Speaker 1: holds a million gallons of water. A million. Oliver said,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of water. The book says thunderheads can
Speaker 1: hold more than that, millions and millions of gallons, and
Speaker 1: when they release it, the rain falls so hard you
Speaker 1: can't see across the street. Oliver was quiet for a moment,
Speaker 1: looking at the thunderhead. Then he said, I'd like to
Speaker 1: work at the thunderhead station. Imagine being inside a cloud
Speaker 1: that big, with all that power and knowing you made it.
Speaker 1: You'd have to be very strong, Cyrus said. The cloud
Speaker 1: stuff for thunderheads heavier than regular cloud stuff. It's packed tight,
Speaker 1: layer upon layer. I'm strong, Oliver said, flexing his arm.
Speaker 1: It was not particularly strong, being the arm of an
Speaker 1: eight year old boy, but Cyrus appreciated the gesture. You'd
Speaker 1: need to be strong in a different way, she said,
Speaker 1: not muscle strong, patient strong. You'd have to pack the
Speaker 1: cloud stuff for hours, layer upon layer, without getting tired
Speaker 1: or bored. The thunderhead workers are the most patient workers
Speaker 1: in the factory. Oliver considered this. I could be patient,
Speaker 1: he said, especially if there was a good view. They
Speaker 1: lay side by side in the grass, their backs against
Speaker 1: the warm earth, their faces toward the sky. The thunderhead
Speaker 1: was magnificent, a towering wall of cloud that rose from
Speaker 1: the southern horizon like a cathedral made of vapor, its
Speaker 1: top spreading into an anvil that covered a quarter of
Speaker 1: the sky. The base was dark and heavy, and the
Speaker 1: rain fell beneath it in a curtain of silver, and
Speaker 1: the lightning flashed inside the cloud, bright and quick, illuminating
Speaker 1: the interior for a split second, revealing the layers of
Speaker 1: cloud stuff packed tight, layer upon layer, the work of
Speaker 1: the most patient workers in the factory. They lay side
Speaker 1: by side in the grass, watching the sky. The thunderhead
Speaker 1: was growing, its top spreading wider, and the anvil shape
Speaker 1: was fully formed, now flat and dark like a black
Speaker 1: ceiling over the southern horizon. The base was very dark,
Speaker 1: almost black, and Cirrus could see the rain beginning to fall,
Speaker 1: a thin curtain of silver that blurred the trees and
Speaker 1: the hills behind it. There it goes, she whispered. The
Speaker 1: thunder rolled across the valley, low and deep, and the
Speaker 1: ground vibrated slightly, and Cyrus felt it through her back,
Speaker 1: a gentle shaking, like the earth was shivering. The rain
Speaker 1: fell harder, and the curtain thickened, and the thunderhead seemed
Speaker 1: to grow even larger, its top rising higher, its base
Speaker 1: spreading wider, and Cyrus imagined the wookers inside, standing at
Speaker 1: their stations, pulling levers, releasing the water, watching it fall
Speaker 1: with satisfaction. I want to see inside, Oliver said, What
Speaker 1: does it look like inside a thunderhead? Cyrus thought about this, dark,
Speaker 1: she said, and loud. The thunder echoes off the walls,
Speaker 1: and there's lightning bright flashes that light up everything for
Speaker 1: a second, and then it's dark again. The workers wear
Speaker 1: special gear I think helmets maybe, and ear protection, and
Speaker 1: they just stand there in the dark with the lightning.
Speaker 1: They're used to it. It's their job. They've been doing
Speaker 1: it for as long as the factory has existed. Oliver
Speaker 1: was quiet for a long time. Then he said, I
Speaker 1: think I'd rather work at the Cumulus station. The clouds
Speaker 1: are friendlier. Cirrus smiled. The Cumulus station is nice too.
Speaker 1: The workers there are the happiest in the factory. They
Speaker 1: make clouds that people love, Clouds that look like animals
Speaker 1: and ships and faces. They take pride in their work.
Speaker 1: I'd make a cloud paped like a dinosaur, Oliver said,
Speaker 1: a t rex with big teeth. You'd need a very
Speaker 1: big mold. I'd build one. They lay in the grass
Speaker 1: and watched the thunderhead move south, the rain falling in
Speaker 1: a steady silver curtain, the thunder rolling across the valley,
Speaker 1: and the factory cloud drifted westward, still working, still making clouds,
Speaker 1: its chimneys puffing out vapor, its doors opening and closing.
Speaker 1: The tiny workers inside, busy at their stations, shaping the sky.
Speaker 1: One cloud at a time. After lemonade, Cyrus went back
Speaker 1: to the field. The afternoon was warming, the sun higher now,
Speaker 1: and the grass was dry and warm beneath her. She
Speaker 1: lay down again in the same spot, her back against
Speaker 1: the earth, her face toward the sky, and resumed her watch.
Speaker 1: The factory cloud had moved farther west, and it was
Speaker 1: changing again. The flat roof had rounded into a dome,
Speaker 1: and the walls had softened, and the whole cloud looked
Speaker 1: less like a factory now and more like a great
Speaker 1: white hill floating in the blue. But the chimneys were
Speaker 1: still visible, two small protrusions on the top, and from
Speaker 1: one of them, a thin stream of vapor was still rising,
Speaker 1: still drifting upward into the thinner air, and Cyrus smiled
Speaker 1: because the factory was still working, still making clouds, even
Speaker 1: as it drifted across the sky. Toward the evening, around
Speaker 1: the factory, other clouds had appeared. A group of small cumulus,
Speaker 1: each one no bigger than a house, was scattered across
Speaker 1: the middle of the sky, their tops bright white and
Speaker 1: their bases flat and gray. They cast shadows on the
Speaker 1: fields below, and the shadows moved slowly across the grass,
Speaker 1: following the clouds, and Cyrus watched them and thought about
Speaker 1: the workers who had made them. Tiny hands shaping tiny clouds,
Speaker 1: pushing them out the factory doors, watching them rise. Theaunger
Speaker 1: cloud had appeared to the south, a great towering cumulus
Speaker 1: that rose from the horizon like a mountain, its top
Speaker 1: spreading into an anvil shape, its base dark and heavy.
Speaker 1: Cyrus recognized it immediately a cumulonimbus, a thunder head, the
Speaker 1: most powerful cloud in the sky. She imagined the workers
Speaker 1: at the thunderhead station working with special urgency, packing the
Speaker 1: cloud stuff extra tight, building the density layer upon layer
Speaker 1: until the cloud could hold no more water and would
Speaker 1: have to release it in a great dramatic burst of
Speaker 1: rain and lightning and thunder. She imagined the workers inside
Speaker 1: the thunder head, standing at their stations, feeling the cloud
Speaker 1: shake and rumble around them, And she imagined them calm
Speaker 1: and focussed doing their jobs, because this was what they
Speaker 1: were made for, This was what they trained for, the
Speaker 1: big storms, the dramatic deliveries, the moments when the sky
Speaker 1: showed its power. She lay in the grass and watched
Speaker 1: the thunder head grow. It rose higher and higher, its
Speaker 1: top spreading wider, and the anvil shape became more defined,
Speaker 1: flat and sharp edged, like a blacksmith's tool made of cloud.
Speaker 1: The based darkened, turning from gray to a deep, brouged purple,
Speaker 1: and Cyrus could see the rain beginning to fall beneath it,
Speaker 1: a curtain of silver that blurred the horizon, and she
Speaker 1: could hear the distant rumble of thunder, low and continuous,
Speaker 1: like the growl of a large animal. She was not
Speaker 1: afraid of thunderheads. Her mother had taught her about them,
Speaker 1: explaining that the lightning was just electricity jumping from one
Speaker 1: part of the cloud to another, and that the thunder
Speaker 1: was the sound the air made when the lightning heated it,
Speaker 1: and that as long as she was not the tallest
Speaker 1: thing in the field, she was safe. Cyrus knew this
Speaker 1: was true, but she also knew that thunderheads were impressive,
Speaker 1: that they demanded attention, that they were the sky's way
Speaker 1: of reminding every one below that the atmosphere was powerful
Speaker 1: and unpredictable and not to be taken lightly. The rain
Speaker 1: fell for twenty minutes, steady, heavy downpour that soaked the
Speaker 1: fields and filled the creek, and turned the dust on
Speaker 1: the road to dark, wet mud. Cyrus stayed on the porch,
Speaker 1: watching through the screen door, listening to the rain on
Speaker 1: the roof and the wind in the trees, and the
Speaker 1: distant thunder rolling across the hills. The factory cloud was
Speaker 1: still visible to the east, smaller now, its shape less defined,
Speaker 1: but still there, still working, still making clouds, while the
Speaker 1: thunderhead raged to the south. When the rain stopped, the
Speaker 1: sky changed. The sun came out from behind the retreating clouds,
Speaker 1: low and golden, and the light fell on the wet
Speaker 1: fields and the wet rooftops and the wet road, and
Speaker 1: everything glittered. The creek was running fast, now swollen with
Speaker 1: rain water, and Cyrus could hear it from the porch,
Speaker 1: a loud, rushing sound that was different from its usual murmur.
Speaker 1: The air smelt fresh and clean, washed by the rain,
Speaker 1: and there was a coolness to it that had not
Speaker 1: been there before. A hint of evening, a promise of night.
Speaker 1: Cyrus went back to the field. The grass was wet,
Speaker 1: and her shoes left footprints in the soft earth, and
Speaker 1: she could feel the moisture through her socks. Cool and pleasant.
Speaker 1: She lay down in her usual spot, careful to avoid
Speaker 1: the puddles that had formed in the low spots and
Speaker 1: looked up at the sky. The thunder head was moving away,
Speaker 1: its dark basse, shrinking towards the southern horizon, and behind
Speaker 1: it in its wake, the sky was clearing, but the
Speaker 1: factory cloud was still there, far to the west, now
Speaker 1: near the setting sun, and it was changing one last time.
Speaker 1: The dome shape had flattened, and the chimneys had disappeared,
Speaker 1: and the whole cloud was thinning, becoming translucent, the blue
Speaker 1: of the sky showing through it like light through a
Speaker 1: thin curtain. The sun was behind it now, and the
Speaker 1: light was coming through the cloud, turning it gold and
Speaker 1: orange and pink, and the edges of the cloud were
Speaker 1: bright with sunlight, and the whole thing looked like a painting,
Speaker 1: like something an artist had created on a canvas of sky.
Speaker 1: There it goes, SyRS, whispered, The factory is closing. She
Speaker 1: imagined the workers inside, putting away their tools, wiping down
Speaker 1: their stations, turning off the lights. The cumulus station was clean,
Speaker 1: the mold stacked in a corner. The cirrus station was swept,
Speaker 1: The ice crystal combs hung on hooks by the door.
Speaker 1: The stratus station was empty. The rain already delivered. The
Speaker 1: workers resting after their shift, and at the thunderhead station,
Speaker 1: the workers were exhausted but satisfied, their biggest delivery of
Speaker 1: the day complete. The thunderhead now moving away on its own,
Speaker 1: carrying its rain to towns and fields far to the south.
Speaker 1: Had the factory. Cloud continued to thin and dissolve as
Speaker 1: the sunset. The gold and orange deepened to rose, and
Speaker 1: then to a deep, bruised purple, and the cloud became
Speaker 1: a thin, wispy streak, barely visible against the darkening sky.
Speaker 1: Cyrus watched it until it disappeared, entirely, absorbed into the
Speaker 1: colors of the sunset gone, and the sky was empty
Speaker 1: where the factory had been, just blue fading to dark,
Speaker 1: just stars beginning to appear. She lay in the grass
Speaker 1: for a long time after the cloud was gone. The
Speaker 1: field was quiet now, the bees gone to their hives,
Speaker 1: the birds settled in the trees, the creek murmuring softly.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the hill. The air was cool
Speaker 1: and still, and the first stars were appearing, faint and tentative,
Speaker 1: like the sky was testing them, checking to see if
Speaker 1: they were ready. Cyrus looked up at them and thought
Speaker 1: about the cloud factory, About the workers inside, About the
Speaker 1: clouds they had made that day, the cumulus and the cyrus,
Speaker 1: and the stratus and the thunderhead, all of them drifting
Speaker 1: across the sky, all of them seen by someone, all
Speaker 1: of them beautiful in their own way. She thought about
Speaker 1: her grandmother's words, the sky is a very creative place.
Speaker 1: She thought about the relationship between herself and the sky,
Speaker 1: the way she lay in the field every day and watched,
Speaker 1: and the way the sky performed for her, rolling out
Speaker 1: clouds in shapes and colors and sizes, giving her something
Speaker 1: to see, something to imagine, something to wonder about. It
Speaker 1: was a conversation, she decided, a quiet conversation between a
Speaker 1: girl in a field and the sky above. And the
Speaker 1: language they spoke was the language of clouds. Her mother
Speaker 1: called from the house, Cyrus dinner. Cyrus stood up and
Speaker 1: brushed the grass from her clothes. She looked at the
Speaker 1: sky one last time. It was dark now, the blue
Speaker 1: deepening to black, the stars multiplying, the moon rising above
Speaker 1: the eastern hills, a thin crescent that looked like a
Speaker 1: fingernail clipping or a boat on a dark sea. There
Speaker 1: were no clouds left, not a single one, and the
Speaker 1: sky was clear from horizon to horizon, and cyrus knew
Speaker 1: that tomorrow the factory would open again, the workers would
Speaker 1: return to their stations, and the sky would be full
Speaker 1: of clouds once more. She walked up the hill, the
Speaker 1: grass bending under her feet, the wild flowers nodding their heads.
Speaker 1: The field was quiet now, the bees gone, the birds settling,
Speaker 1: the creek murmuring softly. The evening light was golden, falling
Speaker 1: across the grass in long, warm rays, and the shadows
Speaker 1: of the trees along the fence line stretched across the
Speaker 1: field like dark outstretched arms. She stopped at the top
Speaker 1: of the hill and turned around for one last look.
Speaker 1: The field lay below her, green and vast, and above
Speaker 1: it the sky was deep blue, fading to purple at
Speaker 1: the edges, and the first stars were appearing, faint and tentative.
Speaker 1: The factory cloud was gone, dissolved into the sunset, but
Speaker 1: the sky was still beautiful, still full of light and
Speaker 1: color and the quiet promise of night. Cyrus stood there
Speaker 1: for a moment, breathing in the cool evening air, and
Speaker 1: she felt the same connection she always felt, the link
Speaker 1: between herself and the sky, the conversation that never ended
Speaker 1: the words spoken in clouds in silence, and the slow,
Speaker 1: patient turning of the earth. She walked up the hill
Speaker 1: toward the house, her feet leaving wet prints on the grass,
Speaker 1: her eyes still in the sky. The stars were bright
Speaker 1: and steady, and the moon was rising, and somewhere above her,
Speaker 1: high in the atmosphere, the last wisps of Cirrus cloud
Speaker 1: were drifting eastward, carried by the wind, dissolving slowly into
Speaker 1: the night. And Cyrus thought about the workers who had
Speaker 1: made them, tiny hands shaping ice crystals, pushing them out
Speaker 1: the factory door, watching them drift away. And she smiled
Speaker 1: because the sky was beautiful and the factory was real,
Speaker 1: and the conversation between a girl in a field and
Speaker 1: the clouds above was the most wonderful conversation she knew.
Speaker 1: Inside the house, the kitchen was warm and bright. Her
Speaker 1: grandmother was at the stove, stirring a pot of soup
Speaker 1: that smelled of tomatoes and basil. Her mother was setting
Speaker 1: the table, placing bowls and spoons and a basket of
Speaker 1: bread in the center the hot The bread was warm,
Speaker 1: and Cyrus sat at the table and ate and listened
Speaker 1: to her mother and grandmother talk about their day, about
Speaker 1: the garden and the laundry and the rain. And she
Speaker 1: thought about the cloud factory, about the workers and their stations,
Speaker 1: about the clouds they had made, and she felt the
Speaker 1: same quiet wonder she always felt when she watched the sky,
Speaker 1: that sense of being connected to something vast and creative
Speaker 1: and endlessly quietly beautiful. After dinner, Cyrus helped her grandmother
Speaker 1: washed the dishes. The water was warm and soapy, and
Speaker 1: the plates were smooth and cool, and she washed each
Speaker 1: one carefully, rinsing away the soap, placing it in the
Speaker 1: rack to dry. Her grandmother dried the dishes with a
Speaker 1: soft cloth and put them away in the cupboard, and
Speaker 1: they worked together in comfortable silence, the kind of silence
Speaker 1: that does not need to be filled, the kind that
Speaker 1: is itself a form of communication. When the dishes were done,
Speaker 1: Cyrus went to her room. It was a small room
Speaker 1: at the back of the house with a window that
Speaker 1: looked out over the field where she spent her days.
Speaker 1: The bed was covered with a quilt her grandmother had made,
Speaker 1: blue and white squares arranged in a pattern that looked
Speaker 1: like waves or clouds, and the pillows were soft and
Speaker 1: cool and the night air came through the open window,
Speaker 1: carrying the smell of grass and rain and the distant
Speaker 1: murmur of the creek. Cyrus lay in bed and looked
Speaker 1: out the window at the sky. It was fully dark now,
Speaker 1: and the stars were bright, and the moon had risen higher,
Speaker 1: its crescent shape, casting a faint silver light on the
Speaker 1: field below. There were no clouds. The sky was clear
Speaker 1: and deep, and Cyrus looked at it and thought about
Speaker 1: the factory, about the workers, about the clouds they would
Speaker 1: make tomorrow. She imagined the workers going home after their shift,
Speaker 1: tiny figures walking through cloud doors, climbing cloud stairs, sitting
Speaker 1: down to cloud dinners of their own. She imagined them
Speaker 1: sleeping in cloud beds, their small bodies curled up under
Speaker 1: cloud blankets, their faces peaceful, their work done. She closed
Speaker 1: her eyes and felt the night breeze on her face,
Speaker 1: soft and cool and alive, and she thought about the
Speaker 1: sky and the clouds and the factory, and she felt
Speaker 1: that feeling again, the one she always felt when she
Speaker 1: watched the sky, that sense of being small and young
Speaker 1: and temporary, but also of being connected to something vast
Speaker 1: and creative and endlessly quietly beautiful. The sky was a
Speaker 1: very creative place, her grandmother had said, And Cyrus believed
Speaker 1: it because she had seen the clouds, and she had
Speaker 1: seen the factory, and she had seen the workers making
Speaker 1: their deliveries. And she knew that tomorrow, when she lay
Speaker 1: in the field and looked up, the factory would be
Speaker 1: open again, the workers would be at their stations, and
Speaker 1: the skyde would be full of clouds, big puffy ones
Speaker 1: for summer afternoons, wispy ones for autumn evenings, gray ones
Speaker 1: that held rain like secret messages. She thought about the field,
Speaker 1: about the grass and the wild flowers and the bees.
Speaker 1: And she thought about the creek at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the hill, running over its stones, carrying water from the
Speaker 1: mountains to the sea. She thought about the rain that
Speaker 1: had fallen that afternoon, the thunderhead releasing its water in
Speaker 1: a great dramatic burst. And she thought about the cumulus
Speaker 1: clouds that would be there tomorrow, big and white and puffy,
Speaker 1: casting shadows on the fields, making shapes for children to name.
Speaker 1: She thought about the seeress clouds that would appear in autumn,
Speaker 1: high and thin and wispy, made of ice crystals, moving
Speaker 1: fast across the sky. And she thought about the stratus
Speaker 1: clouds that would bring the first snow, gray and low
Speaker 1: and full of quiet power. The factory made them all,
Speaker 1: she thought. Every cloud in the sky, from the smallest
Speaker 1: wisp to the largest thunder head, came from the factory.
Speaker 1: The workers shaped them with their hands, tested them with
Speaker 1: their tools, released them through the doors, and watched them
Speaker 1: drift away into the blue. It was a job that
Speaker 1: never ended, a job that needed doing every day, because
Speaker 1: the sky was always changing and the world below always
Speaker 1: needed clouds, needed rain and shade and the beautiful shapes
Speaker 1: that made people look up and wonder. All of them beautiful,
Speaker 1: every single one, all of them made with care and purpose,
Speaker 1: all of them drifting across the blue, patient and bright
Speaker 1: and endlessly quietly beautiful.