The Cloud Climber

Stan had a brilliant job, one that many people would have given their back teeth to have. People were always telling him – “that’s the kind of job I’d like to have Stan.” Stan would just smile and move on. 

Ever since he was a kid, Stan had always wanted to be a cloud-climber. “That’s pie in the sky,” folks would say. “Your head's in the clouds,” and Stan would just keep quiet and move on.

Stan would get up at 2am every night, when the house was sleeping and by candlelight he would take out his books on cloud-climbing and study until the morning light broke through the window.

Then the day came when Stan told his family and friends that he was leaving his job to become a cloud-climber. His family thought he must be ill because no one in the family had ever been a cloud climber. “I’m sorry,“ he said “that you feel that way but it is what I was born to do.”

“Nonsense,” said his friends. “How stupid,” said his aunts and uncles. “The boy must be mad,” said his old teacher.

Then came the day when Stan got to climb his first cloud.

After a hard day’s work he arrived at the top of the cloud where he breathed in the sweetest of all the airs, and where the sun warmed his contented face.

Up here he knew he was at home and that no one could tell him that he wasn’t born to climb clouds.

Stan, the cloud climber, just smiled because right there and then he knew he was special.

He finally understood what it felt like to do what you had been born to do - and not everyone knew how that felt.

bobby stevenson 2013