I Have Questions About The Sudden Popularity Of Personal Clouds
Gary Opinions investigates the baffling trend of assigning tiny weather systems performance reviews and finds the atmosphere unhelpful.
By Gary Opinions. For a month, I have been trying to work out why everyone in Lower Wombley has suddenly acquired a personal cloud. Not the usual sort overhead, which ignores appointments and sometimes looks like a disappointed sheep. These are small, registered clouds that trail one person at shoulder height and wait to be complimented on their shape.
Apparently, umbrellas became too simple. Residents now leave home carrying labelled clouds in glass lunchboxes. The cloud is larger than the lunchbox, continues raining inside it, and nobody seems troubled by this. They call it a lifestyle choice. I call it a damp dispute with physics.
I asked Mavis Quindle, senior coordinator at the Lower Wombley Personal Weather Office, why anyone wanted one. She said clouds offer “a soft, floating mirror for the feelings we have been avoiding since breakfast.” Then she gave me a form asking whether my emotional climate was partly sunny, mostly theoretical, or facing a chance of biscuits.
“My cloud had recently been placed on a personal development plan.”
That form explains a few things. Cloud owners give performance reviews, for example. Five stars for a mysterious silhouette. Four for punctual thunder. One for “bringing up the past during a picnic.” A man nearby said his own cloud had gone onto a personal development plan after producing a rainbow without sufficient notice.
I am assured that clouds are not pets. This is useful, because I have watched people tuck them into scarves, present them to relatives, and murmur, “Who is my magnificent little weather event?” while waiting for the bus. They are not appliances either. Appliances rarely sulk above the kitchen sink and refuse to condense until someone says sorry.
By this point, the government had become involved. The Ministry of Unnecessary Atmospheres has asked the public to respect cloud boundaries, especially during competitive misting. It also warns that borrowing another person’s cloud can cause “confused precipitation and an awkward discussion about ownership.” Fair enough. I still do not understand why the ministry has not told everyone to look up and leave the sky alone.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned. Weather should arrive uninvited, ruin your hat, then leave without demanding a five-minute voice note. If I need encouragement, I can stand by a window and wait for the forecast to disappoint me in the traditional manner. I will not be adopting a cloud. My thoughts are difficult enough to manage, and they are at least theoretically waterproof.