Super quick sketch I did for this story specifically.
Don't use without my consent, please.
"Let's play a game." Suddenly, I heard the tiny footsteps that had been tramping through weeds and tall grasses just a moment ago come to a stop. He loved games. I knew this would catch his attention.
"What kinda game?" Mason asked, wading through the tall and growing plants to get to me, where I laid in a rare patch of actual green, soft grass. The field was notorious for being yellow and half-dead throughout the entire year, but during the spring and spring alone, some small patches of green would poke up. The grass in those patches was incredibly soft, and ideal for laying on.
"Let's play... "What are the Clouds"." I said, not glancing over at my brother as I spoke. My eyes gazed directly up at the sky, watching as clouds drifted lazily through an endless sea of blue.
The small boy giggled. "Madi, clouds are clouds." He started to turn away from me, but as he did, I quickly shot out an arm and grabbed his ankle. He tumbled onto a soft patch of grass (fortunately) , but came up a second later giggling. I grinned at him, and he looked back at me, smiling with eagerness and utter joy; the look only an innocent child could pull off.
"Come 'ere, turd bucket. I wanna talk to you. Sit." He wriggled his ankle out of my grasp, but came and sat beside me anyway. He folded his legs under himself awkwardly, and propping himself up on one arm, he looked down at where I lay.
"Let's try this again, Mason. What're clouds?" I looked up at him expectantly.
"Teacher said that they're made out of... Of... Concentration." He grinned proudly after using such a big word.
I laughed. "Condensation. And no. Well, I mean - yes, clouds are made of condensation. But think of it this way. Can you touch the clouds?"
He shook his head vigorously. "Nope. That's impossible."
I took in what he said, then asked slowly after a moment: "Where are the clouds?"
"In the sky."
"Where's the sky?"
"In space." He was already giggling, amused by the amount of seemingly-pointless questions.
"Yeah. And what else is in space?"
"Stars... The moon."
"And? Where is Earth?"
"Space!" He laughed at me, but my face remained only slight bemused and more thoughtful.
"Yeah! And where do we live?"
"Earth!"
I smiled thoughtfully. "Yeah. So... Basically we live in space, the clouds are in space, everything about you, about me; it's all in space, yeah?"
He nodded, grinning in amusement at me.
"I can touch you, and you can touch me. So, if we're all one, we're all in this one huge place; then we can touch the clouds, yeah?"
He tilted his head to one side, suddenly lost. It made sense, but... The clouds were so far away. There was no way someone could touch the clouds from Earth. "I guess."
"And you said it was impossible at the beginning of this conversation, didn't you?"
He nodded again, but more slowly, like he was trying to take it all in. "Yeah."
"So, Mason, if we can touch the clouds; if we are the clouds, if we can live in the clouds, then is anything really impossible?"
He shrugged. "Guess not."
I fell silent then, just looking up at the clouds and smiling in satisfaction. That's all I had to say, all he needed to know. I hadn't planned any of the conversation out; it had just happened. And I felt proud for teaching my little brother that he could do anything he wanted to do.
He suddenly jabbed me in the arm, shaking me out of my daydream. "Tag! You're it!" he hollered, leaping up off the ground and darting away into the grass. I smiled in amusement now, and after brushing the twigs off my clothes, I yelled after him and took off into the weeds.
~
Time passed far too quickly after that conversation. Days turned to months, months to years. Mason had grown from the seven-year-old boy I'd played tag with so many years ago into a little man, a boy of eleven years old with more hopes and dreams than imaginable. Sometimes, while we were doing homework side-by-side or unloading the dishes together, he'd poke me in the arm and tell me about a dream he'd had. I'd smile, and say back: "Go for it, kid."
He stopped asking as time went on. The last question I remember him asking me on the subject was one I'd never forget.
"Madi, will I live in a castle in the clouds one day?"
"Of course, Mason. If that's where you want to be, you'll make it there one day."
~
"You're lying!" I insisted desperately, the hand holding the phone shaking violently. "He's too young. He's a healthy boy! He has so much to live for! He's getting better! I know he is! Please, please tell me you're kidding." There was complete, utter silence on the other end of the line. Then, slowly, the shaking noise of my mother spoke.
"No, Madi. We're losing him."
I slammed the phone back into the receiver so hard the phone clattered off its holder and hung in the air, suspended by its cord.
After a blur of commotion and activity that I'll never remember, I found myself sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, holding his trembling, frail little hands that had once been so strong in my own. He flashed me a weak smile, showing that slightly crooked tooth I just loved so much.
"Hey, Madi..." His voice was cracked and quiet, almost silent.
"Yes, Mason?"
"Will I still live in a castle in the clouds one day?"
I didn't think my heart could ever break harder than it did that day, at that moment. Those eleven little words hit me harder and more suddenly than the diagnosis of Mason's terminal cancer had hit our family. I tried to force a smile, but the choked sobs passing through my lips made this hard. Tears streamed down my face, but Mason hadn't shed a single tear. He just looked up at me, expectantly, waiting.
"Of course, Mason. Of course."
Then he closed his eyes so peacefully and so contently, and my brother's dreams of his castle and of all these impossible things were ended by a flat red line.
~
A small hand clutched at four wrinkled fingers as an unlikely pair of an old woman and a young boy walked through a field of dead, dry grass. The small boy looked confused, but the woman looked onto that field with a look of wistfulness, remembrance, hope, and perhaps just a hint of sadness. The woman found a patch of yellowed, but still soft, grass and sat. The boy joined her after a moment.
"What are the clouds, David?"
"They're just clouds, Grandma."
Spurred off a conversation with my little brother. c:
Thanks for reading. Constructive and polite criticism welcome! ~ <3
-Sona
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