This is a story I wrote around 1985 for a Play By Mail we were runing
at the time. It was originally in german and I translated it into english
to put it on the web, an idea Klaus and me had over a guiness or whiskey too
many two nights ago.
Above the Sea of Dreams lies the realm of the happiest children of Byghast,
the realm of the cloudgiants. Their bellies are so full of laughter and their
hearts are so light they drift above the earth like big balloons. Their kids
play ball with fragile cirrus clouds and hide and seek in the mountains of
cumulus clouds. The sun is caressing them with warm beams, the wind is combing
their long beards and the lightning is tickling them.
During a dark and stormy night a giant was born, and his mother called him
Storm. Storm was not as happy as the other children of the giants, while they
were playing he sat aside on a cloud and thought. "Why are there clouds and
giants?, he asked himself, "what reason is there for sky and earth? Why am
I who I am and what is the meaning of life?". He thought deeply about those
questions and his heart became heavier and heavier with them, because he
could not find the answers.
The other kids poked fat, old clouds to make them rain and built castles
from fog, but Storm stayed by himself and thought. When the other children
laughed happily he frowned - their laughter was disturbing his thoughts.
That is how Storm forgot how to laugh. When his belly was all empty, not
the smallest smile left within, and his heart was as heavy as a millstone
he could not float above the clouds like the other giants any more, and he
sank down to the ground.
Storm came down in the middle of a huge desert, in utter solitude. "All
the better", he thought, "finally no one will disturb me and I can think
about the important things in life.". He built himself a tower where he lived.
But despite thinking about the meaning of life day and night now, it still
eluded him. He started to become bored and miss the other giants. Often, he
looked up into the sky, full of longing, and wished he could float again to
rise up and play with his friends. But it was impossible for him to fly up
there as his heart was too heavy.
Every now and then a wanderer got lost in the desert and found his tower.
Storm had become bitter and sad and asked every visitor about the meaning
of life. But none knew the answer, and so he chased them all back out into
the desert. One day, a man dressed all in green arrived at his tower, a man
with a young face and old eyes and a lute in his hand. Him too, Storm asked,
full of scorn and without hope, about the meaning. "I will sing about it",
the man said, "but you have to promise to listen to the end and not interrupt
me.". Storm promised, because he had a lot of time.
The bard strummed his lute and began to play, sad songs and funny songs,
small stories and great ballads. At first Strom scowled darkly at the bard,
because he felt cheated, but after a while the magic of the music caught
him and he started to listen with dreamy eyes. He forgot about his deep thoughts,
let himself fall into the wondersome melodies of the lute, and his heart
became lighter and lighter. When the bard started an especially funny song,
a song about a cow that tries to jump over the moon, he suddenly started
to laugh. He laughed and laughed, shyly giggling at first and then louder
and louder till he was rolling on the floor with laughter. His belly filled
with laughter, became fuller and fuller until he started to float from all
this laughter and lightness, up to the clouds and his friends. He was so
happy he skipped over all clouds in his way and sometimes did a triple summersault
skipping in such a hurry he was to get home.
Later, in stormy nights, sometimes he started to ask himself about the meaning
of life, but he realized that, in searching for it, he had found something
just as important - laughter. And so he thought about the cow that was trying
to jump over the moon and laughed until tears came to his eyes.
