Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Father of the Fog

In the skies of the ancient past lived the first family of clouds to have ever floated above the Earth. Born with the beginning of time, these clouds watched and watered the growing creatures beneath them. One day they noticed a new creature on the rocks below, a type of creature that wore the skins of other animals and stood tall on two legs. This creature was man.

The clouds took a particular interest to humans, observing the way they reacted to rain and drout. It pleased the clouds to have such power over these creatures that they made them dance for rain or else whither to dust. Of course most clouds were not so cruel, and were always sure to wet the humans before any real harm was done.

One cloud, however, who went by the name of Toshas, grew dark with power. It liked to watch the humans dance more than anything else, and it wanted to be the only one for whom the dance was done. In a flurry it drank all the water it could find. When there was no more around it flew across the sky and pushed away the other clouds, drinking their water as well.

"Toshas!" The Goddess of the Skies appeared before the greedy cloud, watching with horror as it soaked up more and more water and grew bigger and darker. "Do not drink more water. Leave some for your siblings. Are they not thirsty also?"

The cloud slurped a fledgling sea into its mighty girth.

"Toshas, no good can come of this greed..."

The cloud shoved the goddess aside and continued to gorge. Larger and larger it grew, growing tense and black and thick. Lightning struck when it laughed thunderously across the sky. How the humans would dance when the saw such an offering drifting on the horizon!

It laughed, reaching a bolt from pole to pole. There was no longer water anywhere that Toshas knew and it decided it was time to demand a performance. Slowly it crept towards the valleys, where it knew the tribes performed a most elaborate dance. Quickly it noticed something was wrong.

The peaks and ridges which had always been so far below it now peaked up beyond its head. Toshas was forced to crawl between their slopes, sliding solemnly along the ground. Desperately it reached up, but its great and bulging belly held firmly to the dirt and stones. At the edge of the valley village, caught in a narrow valley between two close mountains, Toshas reaached out desparingly and cried.

There were no dances that day, and no dances evermore for the poor cloud Toshas. For it was a cloud no more. Toshas was now merely the fog.