the most beautiful thing
Wednesday night, 10PM. Chilly, fifty degrees, wind.

There is a cloud in the sky above my house in the exact shape of a whale, splashed huge and dense across the black ocean of sky.

I stopped where I stood and stared upwards, craning this way and that in awe at its massive perfection. I've only seen one other cloud in my life that's succeeded this one in amazing shape, and that was years and years ago driving down a country highway midday in Northern Michigan. That cloud looked remarkably like a cartoon dog (imagine Disney's Pluto) and people had stopped their cars alongside the road to photograph it.

As I watched, the whale above me appeared to be fading upwards as if surfacing. An optical illusion... if I looked again it was still there and still the same but still fading upwards. But I had only stood for a few seconds when a couple coming down the alley toward me walked into my reverie. I left them standing, also looking upwards, trying to figure out what it was I'd seen.

It's a shame I don't know the word for "whale."