Gliding in the Clouds

As a kid, up in a glider with my dad — I slid open the tiny window, put my hand out, and touched a cloud.

The arrival: the high air — silver, cold and damp, rain that hasn't landed yet, the whole sky moving silently past an open window.

The heart: the cloud takes you in. Fluffy white musk on musk on musk — soft as fairy floss, dense as milk, endlessly deep — with the small human world at the centre of it: cold metal instruments, the buckle of the harness, old leather seats warm from the sun.

The settle: enveloped. The plushest, quietest drift — powder and skin-soft warmth inside the white, the glint of the dials long gone — hours of floating, and the boy never really comes down.