Me, googling "pictures of clouds": Okay I haven't done this for years but it has to be authentic and its currently very cold and wintery outside so I can't stick my head out the window.
June 16th, 2022
Rena yawned to herself, feeling as slow and lazy as a lizard basking on a rock as the soft support of her hammock swung under her, rocking her back and forth slightly in the summer air. The air around her and the others was as warm as a bath, humid and sultry, but with a hint of a cool breeze that made it a languid pleasure rather than a sweltering heat to endure. Ice-cold lemonade was at hand in sweating pitchers, and complete, stultifying peace reigned in the circle of hammocks.
"That one looks like a dove." Satoko murmured, lifting one pale arm to point at a curve of cloud high up in the distance, drifting over the mountains. "See, the beak there, and the arching part is the wings."
"I think it looks like a ship." Keiichi argued drowsily. "Like one of those Viking ships."
"Kei-chan, no one but you knows what those look like." Mion sighed, giving a languid stretch before relaxing back into the softly-swinging embrace of her hammock. "Invalid answer."
Keiichi groaned, but the heat and stupor of the summer day was so intense that he couldn't even find the energy to argue, instead staring up at the shifting clouds with half-lidded eyes.
"That one kind of looks like someone holding a fan in their fist." Satoshi said from the other side of the circle, but since Rena was facing the opposite direction from him, she couldn't judge that for herself. "Like there, with the shadows…those are like fingers, wrapping around the base."
Canvas creaked and rustled as Mion, the only one separate from their lazy circle of hammocks, craned her head to look.
"Yeah, I can kinda see it." she pronounced. "Point to Satoshi-kun."
Keiichi grumbled low in his throat, making Rena giggle a little. She kept her arms folded behind her head, however, staring up at the clouds and the summer sky, feeling the breeze ghost cooling relief over her skin as heat leaked through her hair and onto her arms. A peace that was almost tangible crept over her, like she was being enfolded in a gentle velvety blanket, and she half-closed her eyes, humming pleasantly to herself at the sensation.
It was a slow, sleepy sort of day in which they could spend hours doing this, staring up at the sky and watching the clouds chase each other, a day in which absolutely nothing ever could or ever would happen. The very world seemed to slow like it was drenched in syrup, moving at a languid crawl that somehow harmonized perfectly with the droning buzz of the cicadas in the woods surrounding them. Entire lifetimes could pass in a day such as this, and when everyone rose up from their hammocks, they would still be groggy, despite spending the whole day doing nothing and lying down.
"That one looks like an arm." Rika said, pointing up to a flattened sort of cloud with a thick wisp trailing out of it. "Like an arm that's all bent and sticking up from a pond and trying to grab someone."
Rena cracked open an eye to see if what Rika had said was true, and it was, up to a point. She could see the arm in that trailing, spreading wisp, sticking up from a flattened bank of clouds like an exclamation point.
"I think it looks like a hat." she said. "Like a witch's hat with decorations –like, streamers or something– attached to the pointy bit."
"What a morbid cloud!" Mion laughed, but it was a lazy laugh that faded into a contented hum. "Eh, I can see both. One point to Rika and Rena."
"That one kind of looks like a firework." Shion said, and since she was on the side with Satoshi, Rena had to take her word for it. "Like, that dark smudge of a cloud, right there."
"It's a pretty fat firework, but sure. Point for Shion." Mion yawned.
Rena hoped that Keiichi was enjoying this. She knew he hadn't had the time to be lazy and stare at the clouds back when he was in the city, which meant that he was pretty bad at it now. The rules of the game were to find a picture in the clouds that everyone else (or just Mion, who was the final judge) could see –and not to repeat anything anyone had said before. Keiichi was quick to use up clouds that looked like shores, like scenery, and, of course, like sheep, and it was clear that his well was running dry. He was a methodical thinker, not an overly imaginative one, though you never could tell what would inspire him.
He certainly seemed to be having fun –oh, not that it was as obvious as running and shouting, but when Rena cut her eyes sideways, he was blinking up at the clouds with a lazy, contented expression, occasionally swiping his glass from the table at his shoulder and taking a long pull of icy lemonade from the straw. A hint of a smile played about his lips, making her heart give a treacherous flutter underneath the big purple bow of her dress. His face looked so handsome in repose, the way he looked up at the clouds outlining the sharp swoop of his jaw.
Rena smiled, and nestled back into her hammock, tilting her own chin up and watching the world go by with a peaceful heart and skin caressed by the summer breeze.
8.38 AM, USA Central Time
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