The Man Who Spoke to Clouds
No one knew his real name. He appeared every afternoon at the park with a notebook, a battered umbrella, and a habit of staring up at the sky as if waiting for an answer. People called him the man who spoke to clouds. He never asked for anything—he just smiled, jotted something down, and sometimes pointed toward the horizon as if sharing a secret. One day, as I walked past his usual bench, I noticed a small envelope beside him labeled Roof Cleaning Swindon.
Curiosity won, and I opened it. Inside was a single line: “Follow the winds—they remember where the stories go.” Below that, someone had written Roof Cleaning Gloucester. The next morning, I returned, but he was gone. In his place, a trail of paper cranes led across the park. I followed them, half expecting to find nothing—but every crane had a tiny word written on its wings, like clues waiting to be pieced together.
One read Roof Cleaning Cheltenham. Another said Roof Cleaning Gloucestershire. The farther I went, the more the world began to feel quietly enchanted. The trees seemed to hum. The clouds overhead drifted in shapes that almost looked like letters. And somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard laughter—light and airy, like it was coming from the sky itself.
The final crane rested on a park bench overlooking the river. Beneath it was a folded page torn from his notebook. It read: “Clouds don’t drift aimlessly—they carry the stories we forget to tell.” At the bottom of the page, written in neat handwriting, was Roof Cleaning Cirencester. I stared at the words for a long while, feeling as if I’d stumbled into the pages of someone else’s unfinished dream.
The sky began to change then—shifting from pale gray to a cascade of color. It wasn’t sunset yet, but streaks of violet and gold wove together in a way I’d never seen before. Just as the last light faded, I noticed something floating down from above: a single feather, glowing faintly, tied with a tiny note that read Roof Cleaning Cotswolds.
I never found the man again, though people still claim to see him sometimes—scribbling notes, humming to himself, smiling up at the clouds as if they were old friends. Maybe he’s still out there, gathering stories that drift between the winds, or maybe he became one of them, whispering softly across the sky.
Now, whenever I look up and see a strange shape forming in the clouds, I can’t help but smile. I like to imagine it’s him—still speaking, still watching, still reminding us that even the simplest things in life, like a floating cloud or a forgotten envelope, might be holding onto a story worth following.
