The cloud wouldn’t stop following him.
He didn’t know why the cloud chased him all over. He could never get rid of it. The cloud followed him from his home, to school, all during school, to the play ground at lunch time (down the slide, back and forth on the swings, all over for tag [he hated being frozen], and all around the diamond during kickball), back inside for afternoon classes, on his walk back home from school, and hovered over him while he watched the after school special cartoons.
He hated the cloud. He couldn’t tell you why, he didn’t know, not for sure anyway. He only had a few inklings and notions
The kids at school didn’t like him because of the cloud. Nobody wanted their parade rained on, literally or figuratively. They chased him away, telling him that he made them sad, and that his very presence made them think things they would really rather not.
Then one day, while he was out on the playground, playing by himself because the other kids would really rather have nothing to do with him (at this point he’d decided he’d really rather having nothing to do with them either, fuck them if they didn’t like his cloud [he didn’t like it either]), a young boy that no one much played with walked over to him.
The young boy was in the shade, though it was sunny out, and was holding a ball.
This young boy (who was in the shade holding a ball) asked the boy with the cloud over his head if he’d like to play a game called wall ball. It was an easy game, you just hit the ball towards the wall, and the other person did the same, and you decided the winner as the last one to successfully be able to hit the wall with the ball.
The boy with the cloud over his head was puzzled. Nobody had ever really wanted to play with him. This boy in the shade was certainly a peculiar chap. He said he’d like to play. So they played wall ball until recess was over. They laughed when they made mistakes, and they tried very hard to succeed at hitting the ball towards the wall in such a manner as to make the other boy not be able to hit it back, thus inducing more laughter.
Before going back indoors, the boy with the cloud over his head asked the boy in the shade a question. He wanted to know why the boy in the shade wanted to hang out with him.
The boy in the shade looked a little perplexed, but he answered plainly.
“You’re the only other person out here with a cloud over their head.”
The boy with the cloud over his head didn’t understand for a second.
But then he did.
