Bathroom Monologue: Cloud Garden

He gets up every day with the sun. Sometimes she wakes up first and makes the coffee, but when he wakes up he lets her sleep in. The sun lives by her schedule and he figures she needs rest.

He knows more about her than others because he lives above the clouds. He’ll walk out of his house barefoot, feeling the condensation between his toes. It reminds him of Spring grass after a rain. He’ll mull it over with a cup of coffee from the moon before he gets to work.

He rakes the clouds for a few hours, until she shines overhead. When the sweat beads up on his neck, he starts seeding. He throws handfuls into the clouds, not sticking them in like the rice he planted in his youth. He’s not that sort of farmer anymore. Up here he can be carefree, with space overhead, practicing the art of cloud plowing.

They spring up quickly. That’s a flower. That’s an old lady. That’s a jacket. That’s a fish. If you watch a cloud long enough, you’ll see them blossom, his seeds and their moisture working analogies out in the sky.

You never see him, though. He waits until everyone is on their way back home, including the sun. Only then does he dangle his legs from several miles up, watching people. That one’s a plumber. That one’s pregnant. That one’s going to be a president someday. Is he right? He doesn’t know, nor does the sun. Neither of them knows who seeds the people down there. They don’t think about it much. They just like to see what they see in people.