A strange one shot that came to me this morning. Drabble, but good for some wannabe nephologists/philosophers like myself. :D
.. .. ..
Cumuli
He couldn't decide whether they were fleeting or eternal.
They drifted across the sky, out of reach, detached, ignoring mankind.
Nothing reached them, only the winds, nothing changed them, only the rain.
Making limitless odd shapes and shades of grey. Changing, or dying?
He didn't know whether to envy or pity them.
They were the only objects in this world that never gave him an answer to the only question that mattered to him.
Am I the only one cursed to remain in this twisted limbo?
He thought it strange when people referred to them as the floor of heaven. Heaven wasn't in the skies.
To him, there was no heaven, only hell for non-believers, and this life of trials and tests of faith for him. The concept of heaven was born from naivety.
It was even more pathetic to think it was buried in the sky, unreachable.
It happened more and more often after his prayers, he would find himself glancing up at them, trying to see through them, prove to himself that he was the only permanent denizen of this reality. The clouds would disperse and he would feel a kind of relief, laced with disappointment.
Then they would return, in different guises or areas, and he would be cheated of his answer again.
Sometimes he thought he saw them mimic some shape from below. He would look up, and give a sharp intake of breath as he saw white weapons, machinery, buildings, grey animals, plants and intricate patterns hang in the sky.
Maybe they were not as detached as they seemed.
Maybe they longed to be a more active part of the world. Maybe they longed for the fleeting life of the objects they mimicked. If this was the case, Hidan thought them as naïve as heaven.
Yet this theory did not break his habit of watching them.
How fitting, that it was another cloud watcher, framed by the cumuli and the darkness of a grave, that finally freed him from the clouds' perplexing show.
.. .. ..
This seems more Shikamaru-ish than Hidan-ish but I thought it would be ironic if they had more in common.