The Silver Lining

Chapter 1

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. At least that’s how everyone here describes it. For hundreds of years or as far back as anyone remembers, it’s been customary to be outside looking upwards at the sky as the clouds formed into twirls of puffy purple clouds.

It really was quite amazing to see. Especially the first couple times you watch it. But once I figured out what it was, I was no longer interested in being a spectator. My goal was to figure out how to either get back up there when it happened, or bring them to me at midnight. I just had to wait until the next cycle of silver linings came around.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a voice said as I felt a tug on my pant leg.

I looked down to see a thick college style book that had taken its pages and used them to pinch together a bit of my pants and tug on it.

“Yes?” I asked it.

“I am trying to get to McCarver Lane. There’s a young man starting college tomorrow and I’m supposed to be there on his first day. Any idea which way to go?”

I smiled at it, reminiscing back to my home where we actually read books. Here, books read to you. It reminded me of those audio books you could get from the library, only here, all books read to you. As well as all signs, and menus, and instruction manuals. No one here knew how to read. It was all done for them. Even the doctors didn’t know how to read. They listened to medical audio books read to them and then were scored based on their abilities to take what they heard and apply it to medicinal practices.

“I think it’s a couple blocks that way,” I said as I pointed down the street we were on.

“Much appreciated,” said the thick book with the title I could now read. And with that, Psychology 101 turned and made its way down the block by wobbling its cover from side to side.

Makes no sense why evolution here wouldn’t have given out more legs, I thought with a smile.

My attention was diverted to the sound of a murmuring crowd of spectators breaking their trances and heading back in to their homes.

“Hally!” I turned when I heard my name. It was actually short for Halcyon. My father, a well-known fisherman from my hometown, named me after some made up bird that could calm the rough seas. For a split second, I again felt that twinge of homesickness that had become my drive to get back up to the purple clouds.

“You headed home, Hal?” my friend Mysterious asked as she slid and oozed her way over to me. Mysterious was, for lack of better words, pink sludge. She moved by sliding herself along the ground with a strange continuity that allowed her to still see and talk to you. Seeing her anywhere in my world, one would take off running and screaming as though the Blob from that old black and white movie had really come to life. But here, she was crowned town royalty. Though she couldn’t wear the crown because it was too heavy and sunk into her body and eventually right through to the ground.

“Yeah,” I said as I yawned. “I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

“You gonna go do your sleep?” she asked.

I smiled at her misinterpretation of my need for sleep. Mysterious, much like most of the citizens here, did not need to sleep. There were a few exceptions, though.

The cows, for example, needed to sleep. This caused quite the confusion amongst everyone here when I arrived. They thought I might have been a skinny odd cow and kept trying to feed me grass.

I was just as confused to even see a cow here among all these strange and magical-like beings walking around. But, it turns out that cows are the life source for everyone here. They are used for everything from milk and food to medicine and clothes. No part of a cow is wasted here and they are never butchered until they can no longer produce milk. And the bulls, the few that do exist, are protected for their entire life used only for breeding. They are never butchered and only euthanized if the bull is suffering. Otherwise they are allowed to live to their full potential and die gracefully as an old bull.

“Yeah, I need to rest. It’s getting late for me,” I told her.

“I’ll come with until you get there,” she said, as I mentally took note that she did not say she would “walk” with me. It was those little nuances that kept me smiling most of the time here.

We strolled down the street passing the Pens and Pencils having an argument about wet paper kids, the gummy bears and sour patch kids playing basketball in the park, and the Picture Frames who were admiring the new legs the town surgeon had given them.

When we reached my small private hut that had been given to me when I arrived, I turned to say goodbye to Mysterious, but was interrupted when she said, “Ooooh! Did you see the glitter in the clouds tonight?” She was so excited and jiggled like Jell-O.

“I didn’t catch that,” I replied.

“That means they should be silver in the next couple days!” she said excitedly.

At this, I perked up immediately.

“Silver? Really?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “We haven’t had the silver ones since…” she thought for a minute. “I think not since you arrived.”

My brain was spinning.

“I gotta go, Myss. I’ll see you in the morning.” I turned and walked swiftly to the door.

This was it, I thought. I’m going home.