Beyond The Clouds

Laying in the meadows, a young man had been gazing at the clouds in awe. He always found excitement in the clouds, he often used his imagination to make the clouds become figures. He was especially interested in the cloud above the mountain. It never seemed to move from that spot, in fact, it has been the as long as he could remember. After deep thinking as to what the cloud might be anchored to, the young man had decided to go take a look. He had risen to his feet and marched home.

He lived in a small village on an island few even knew about, the island was directly in the middle of what some called the Bermuda Triangle. He often enjoyed daydreaming when he walked letting his brain wander as his feet lead the way home, and only once did this lead him to get lost. He often thought about the things he had found on the island, like the girl in a steel bird who had crashed on the island and his family had helped bring back to life. They were good thoughts and memories and thoughts, very rarely did his thoughts wander to bad thoughts.

Once the young man had reached his house he had opened up the door to his home, which was a small hut made of stone, mud, and grass, he had grabbed a satchel and began packing it with essentials like food, water and water containers, clothes, and tools for the journey. Once his satchel was filled the young man had begun his long and eerie journey. He walked out of the house and began walking in the direction of the mountain.

Again his thoughts had begun to wander around his jungle of a brain. His thoughts lead him to a luxurious steel whale that had challenged a giant ice rock and it had fallen, it didn't have the strength to pass through and it had lost its valuable li..., his thoughts grew blank and his dark thoughts had suddenly gone away as he walked face-first in the mountainside. He was blind walking when he went into these thoughts.

He began what would become the hardest challenge of his life that may or may not be worth it. He began to climb the mountain. Years of looking in awe and wonder would finally be answered as to what anchored the clouds to that mountain. The young man was only in his 20s, so he was very capable. He hadn't a athletic build, but he knew what he was doing. He had a liking of climbing things all of his life. He climbed anything from trees to small rocky cliff sides, and he was good at it.

After about an hour and a half of climbing, the man decided to take a break. He lied down on a flat edge that offered shade. When he caught his breath he sat up and reached in his satchel and pulled out a water container to take a drink from it. As the water touched his lips the ground beneath him began to give away. The ground cracked and fell away from underneath him, he slid down the sharp and jagged rocky slope as his clothes and skin were being torn. When he reached the bottom of the mountainside he lied there in agony. Tears rolling down his cheeks as he had tried to move, but the pain was overwhelming. He was so warm, yet cold at the same time; he was indeed at death's doors.

As he closed his eyes, his entire life flashed in an instant. Through the piercing pain and agony that the man had experienced just moments ago, he still tried to move. It was this movement that caused his strength to diminish to nothing leading him to pass out. Days had passed and in any normal circumstance he would have died, but for some unknown cause, he had lived.

The man had woken with a splitting headache and a sore and shredded back. It could only have been an act of God that saved him. With this second chance, the man had decided that he would not fail his savior and he would conquer the mountain.

His lips dry, cracked, and sour from tears and blood. He had gone in search of a nearby pond for his water source. The man had filled his water containers and drank from the pond. The man had drank and drank until his stomach had hurt, yet his thirst had far from disappeared. In fact, he didn't acknowledge his hunger until he had finished drinking. Overall he was in bad shape. He decided he would take a nap and look for food afterward, so he slept. When the man had woken up he was painfully hungry, almost energyless. The man had reached in the satchel and pulled out a loaf of bread and began to eat. His hunger quickly diminished to nothing, which struck him as odd because he was a big eater. When his hunger was gone he put the loaf of bread away.

He looked up at the mountain that almost took his life not to long ago, the man sighed and began to walk back to it. This time his mind did not wander to his thoughts. Instead, he was focused and aware of his surroundings, as he climbed the mountain he had a determination that was never apparent before. The higher he got the colder the weather had become. After about three hours of climbing, he reached the anchored cloud. He inhaled and climbed past the cloud to reveal the most beautiful thing ever seen by man.

He had seen a kingdom, but not an ordinary kingdom. It was a kingdom of almost godlike structures, It had structures made of flawless quartz and shrines made of gold. As he climbed to the top and stood on his sore and lead-like legs he walked over to a golden shrine and a took a sip of water. All of a sudden he felt restored and his pain disappeared. He had cried tears of joy for reasons not even he fully understood. When he looked around for the place he had entered from so that he could leave was when he realized what had truly happened. He hadn't survived the mountain's rockslide, he was in the place that every man dreamed of, but none ever wanted to be so early... He was in Heaven.