THE BOY WHO LOVED CLOUDS

Stargazer  KSR

The boy’s grandmother had painted murals on the bedroom walls of all the grandchildren, including those of this boy.  When he was eight  years old, he graduated into a larger bedroom and decided he really liked clouds and would like her to paint some on his ceiling, so together they talked it over  and she also thought it would be a good idea.

They lived in the Northwest where the skies are often overcast and rainy, so they knew a dark and dreary sky would not be a cheerful thing to see even before you got out of bed.  Seattle does not get the huge white  clouds that the Southwest is accustomed to seeing, but when the days are clear and sunny there is no place on the planet more agreeable with the sun glistening off the water of Lake Washington, Puget Sound and the mountains in the distance reflecting their snowy tops.

So it was agreed that the sky must be warm and that the clouds should have some touches of peachy tones on their edges showing that the sun was indeed shining on the world outside his window.

A tall ladder was found and the grandmother put on her paint-covered jeans and went to work creating a fantasy ceiling for this little boy.  The ceiling was much larger than the boy’s previous room, and the work much slower because of the position of the painter.  Michaelangelo had it easier because of scaffolding he was able to use, but the clouds magically appeared on the ceiling, and the grandmother stood and surveyed her work.  It needed just one more thing.

With phosphorescent paint and a map of the night skies, stars and the constellations were put in their approximate positions.  When it was dark, the ceiling became alive with the twinkle and sparkle of all the stars.  It was just like being in a world of your own and you could imagine that an actual Stargazer came each night to place them in their proper places.

At the end of the day the family went into the newly painted room, lay on his bed and looked up at the stars on the ceiling, and declared the endeavor a success.

One evening when the boy was about thirteen years old he announced to his mother that he was about to take his friend Mary up to his bedroom to look at  the stars in his ceiling.  Shortly after that, the ceiling was again painted white.