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The morning was missing something.
Prince Freddie could not, at first, say what. The sky was the right colour for this hour: the pale grey-blue of early light, not yet committed to anything. The sea was behaving correctly. The shore was as it always was, the tide about where he expected it, the sand unmarked except by the night’s small events.
Then he looked out across the water and understood.
There was a cloud on the sea.
Not above the sea, where clouds live and work. On it. Sitting flat on the surface about two hundred metres from the shore. She was very still and very low. A soft white mass resting on the water like something that had landed. She had decided not to get up again.
Freddie waded in to his knees, which was as far as he was going without a specific reason to go further.
“Hello,” he said.
A pause.
“Hello,” said the cloud. Her voice was the sound of fog, which is to say it was soft and all directions at once.
“Are you supposed to be out here?”
Another pause. Longer.
“I’m supposed to be up there,” she said. “This is my first morning. I’m responsible for the eastern light. You’re supposed to come in from the east at the right height. You catch the sun and move with it as it rises. I know how to do it. I’ve been trained.” A small silence. “I just came down here instead.”
Freddie considered this. “Because?”
“It’s very high,” the cloud said. “And very visible. Everyone can see the morning clouds. I didn’t expect that.”
Freddie waded back to dry sand and sat down, facing her. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten.
He had been sitting for some minutes when a larger shape appeared overhead. It descended in a thoughtful spiral. Nimbus Junior was a cloud of considerable experience. He had somewhat less considerable confidence than you might expect. He had spent his early years as the most anxious cloud on the coast. Over time, he learned that the coast got its weather whether he worried about it or not. He landed, if that was the right word, beside Freddie. He regarded the young cloud on the water.
“First shift?” he said.
“Yes,” the young cloud said.
“Eastern light?”
“Yes.”
Nimbus Junior was quiet for a moment. “I came down the same way,” he said. “My first December storm. I was supposed to cover the whole northern headland. I ended up in someone’s garden for two hours.”
“Did it help?” the young cloud said. “Coming down?”
“No,” Nimbus Junior said cheerfully. “I still had to go back up. But I understood something while I was down there. Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“The storm happened anyway. I was in someone’s garden. The storm happened up above me. It was all fine. The thing you’re wondering about is too large to change because you’re wondering. The morning is going to occur. The only question is whether you’re in it.”
The young cloud was quiet.
Freddie watched the eastern sky. The light was building without her. A pale gold beginning. The sun worked its way up behind the horizon. The first thin edge of it was showing.
“What does it feel like?” the young cloud said. “Being high up.”
“Like the first time every time,” Nimbus Junior said. “I’ve been doing this for years. It still feels like the first time when you go up.” He paused. “But the first time is also the most real time. You’ll have that this morning. You won’t have it again.”
The young cloud rose, slowly, from the surface of the water. She went up in the way clouds go up when they mean to. Not quickly. But with the kind of intention that has no question in it.
At the right height she stopped. She turned, or did what clouds do instead of turning. She caught the light.
The beach changed.
Not dramatically. But the quality of the morning shifted when the light came through cloud rather than clear sky. It was softer and more distributed. The shadows were less sharp. Everything had the particular gentleness of an early morning working at full capacity. The sand looked clean. The sea went a light grey-green. The tops of the village buildings caught something pink. It would be gone in ten minutes.
Nimbus Junior took this in.
He said nothing. He did not need to.
Freddie walked home through the early morning. The changed light moved with him. The salt air from the beach carried with it the sense of something new. The yoga man was at his patch of dry sand. He was beginning his practice. The sea ahead caught the new light in an extraordinary way. The village was starting. A shutter. A smell of coffee. A cat on a wall taking stock.
He went in through the cottage gate. His human was just waking, stirring under the covers. Freddie’s crown tilted gently as he watched them stretch. He ate, quietly, and circled toward the bed. Once, twice, three times. His small legs folded beneath him. He lowered his chin to rest on the cool covers. His tail curled around his side. The changed light from the window moved across his fur.
Above the coast, the young cloud held the light steady through the dawn.
The End
Sleep well, Prince Freddie. Above the coast, the young cloud is holding the light. The eastern sky keeps changing.
This story was sixteen minutes. There is a longer telling, almost twice as long and told at half the speed, made for falling asleep to rather than following. It is called The Settle.
It is new, and before we open it properly we want a few honest ears on it. Testing is simple: you get every Settle night free in your podcast app, you fall asleep to one, and you tell us where you fell asleep.
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Below is a preview.
The Settle is this same story, told slower, longer, made for falling asleep to rather than following.
One subscription. No streaks, no ads, no catch. Press play, and let the day settle.
Utterly charming as ever. I loved the reminder that fear doesn't mean we're not ready, only that we're doing something for the first time. X