On the great plateau on the very upper edge of the city, is an expansive urban sprawl. Every house is a collection of industrial hand-offs. And with “that’s good enough for me,” kinda mentality. The hand-me down town was created. The walls of their homes are made of pallets and wrapped up like a present in black plastic sheets, and sometimes congregated steel roofing. The whole thing is topped off with the ever present blue or green tarps, a master piece in thrifty living.
The place has a nauseating and nefarious odor to it. That’s not surprising, since it was erected over a garbage dump from the cast offs of the much richer city to the south. But its also has a revolting pusillanimity to it as well. The relentless and suffocating poverty is the greatest social concerns of all times. It fosters racism, ignorance and injustice.
In the very center of this misery is a young boy named Miguel. He is a good, warmhearted boy, but naive about his place in society, but from his point of view, he often says,
“I try my hardest to be a good boy.”
Sometimes it works out for him, but more often than not, it leaves him holding the empty bag of life. Miguel is of mixed blood, and his family’s social standing has marked him as a pariah, even among the untouchables.
In the midst of his misspent youth, at the tender age of five and a quarter years of life, Miguel already had more problems than a boy of his caliber ought to have. Miguel, of course, didn’t see them quite the same way. To him, his problems were much simpler.
One of my biggest problems is very simple, it’s my mommy and her customers. They are a handful and they are very difficult for me to deal with! You see, she spends all of her nights, and most of her days wrestling with naked men for money. Mommy is pretty when she has her clothes on. When she doesn’t, she looks like a bean pole. Her silky black hair is almost always wrapped up into a ball on the back of her head. She must love that red lip paint that she puts on her mouth all of the time. It also gets all over my blanky and sometimes all over me and my clothes as well, but that is only a problem when I get close to her, and of course that is every chance that I get.
Her customers are really mean to me. I think they wish I was somewhere else, but this is my home. Where else can I go? I think they know that, but they don’t care. They’ll push me around, or hit and kick me, or even whisper hateful things to me when mommy is not looking, and sometimes they do it, even when she is around. Yes, my problem is she spends way to much time with these hateful men, and never enough time with me. I don’t know why? I’m a great boy, who would love to be played with.
Another one of my huge problems is boredom! I spend lots and lots of times making up or doing exciting things. Most of those things she doesn’t approve of me doing, like when I ran off the end of the roof, trying to learn how to fly, I almost did it though.
I mentioned it to mommy, she thought I was nuts. She laughed at me, and not in a good way either. It was then that I learned some valuable lessons; I learned that laughing with someone is good, but laughing at someone is bad. I also learned to keep, the seeing of angels to myself. And I learned you can’t always trust your mommy.
I see two itsy-bitsy clouds that have smooched together, and poof like magic, they become one. And sometimes I see a humongous cloud get stretched into ity-bity smaller clouds. Kinda like what I do with my peanut butter tortilla sandwich. I wonder does the angels go about tearing up the clouds like that, like Jorge does with his toys? Or does someone else do that instead? Like, maybe God!
I like it up here on the roof. It’s so relaxing. I feel that I’m closer to God and his heaven. It’s a good feeling being a live. This is a good day to be me after all. She spends all of our time together, yelling at me, and giving me her attention in the form of a “love spanking,” She says that she hurts me ‘cause she loves me. I always end up feeling her love on my bottom for hours and hours on end.
My home is really tiny. Even for a small boy like me. Mommy can barely walk around the bed, it’s so tiny. The potty is a real potty, with water and everything. You flush it and it goes whirling down the hole. It’s close by, right outside the back of the house. Mommy puted up a curtain over the doorway, so that we can do are things without everyone of the neighbors gawken at us. It’s less embarrassing that way.
Some of the other people have fancy carpet on their floor, and Seňor Helton even has some on his walls. When I saw that for the first time, I thunk to myself, that sure is funny, but then I asked myself, how do you walk on those walls. I guess if you take a running start you could do it. But he says that it sure is good for keeping the heat outside, where it belongs. Seňor Helton is very smart. He even has a wire fence with these itsty-bitsy holes in front of his doorway. He says it keeps the fly’s out.
When mommy’s last customer of the night goes home to his family, I know that all is well for me. The customer last night tripped over me, and made me cry. As he was stomping out the door, he called me all kinds of naughty name, Lotsa hateful words, all the way down the road I could hear him. Their is no doubt that he did it on purpose. I know this ‘cuz, I was sleeping on the floor, I guess I was in his way, but where else am I suppose to go? It’s a tiny room.
After all the grown-up troubles have left for the night. I get myself up off of the floor. I knock the dirt off of my underwear, and climb into bed with my blanky next to mommy. No other grown-ups are here to get in the way. Mommy’s skin always seems to leak that sour water that she loves to drink. I tried it once, but I didn’t care for it. It made me sleepy and afterwards I feel yucky. I get real close to mommy and I put my arms around her middle. I let my sad tears wash away all of mommy’s sour water.
It never really matters what time I’m allowed to go to sleep in our bed. I almost never wake up there. It seems that I’m always waking up on the floor, far away from my blanky, and from where I began.
Wherever I wake up, When I wake up, I tell myself,
“It’s time to rise and shine, it’s the beginning of my new day.”
From the very start of the day, I’m ready to go. I have all these eebee-gee-bes inside of me, bouncing around and wanting to get out. But I have to keep all those ants in my pants tucked deep inside until much later in the morning.
I have to be as quiet as a church mouse until mommy wakes up all by herself. I can’t forget that. I sure don’t want to wake her up and make her grouchy, like that green mop-ster I saw on the television at Jorge’s house once.
If I do, it will be all bad for me, if she gets up on the wrong side of the bed. The problem is that I don’t know what side that is? Is it the right side or the left side of the bed? I know the difference between my right and left side, mostly. But I don’t know where I should begin. After I figure out what is the right one then I know the other must be the left. After that is known, I can figure the rest out, it’s easy peasly. But the wrong side, now that’s confusing to me. I only have two sides, and neither one is the wrong side, unless I make a boo boo in my guessing.
I’m hungry, after spending all night growing, but sometimes there’s nothing for me to eat. I have to wait ‘till afternoon most times. So I drink lots of water, and try not to think about it so much. But this morning, after mommy wakes up, and I’m sure she’s in a good mood, I say to her;
“Mommy I’m hungry.”
Today I strike it rich. I get not one but two tortillas, and you know what? They both have a whopping, enormous lump of peanut butter on them. It’s so huge that it smooching out of the sides of the tortillas. I like to suck it out before it falls off and on to my toes. Another thing that I like to do is tear the tortillas into small pieces. That way I have more food to eat.
Mommy is being real good to me today. I like it when she’s like that. She gets the milk out of the fridg-a-dator, and pours it into a cup for me. It goes
“plop, plop, plop.”
“Mommy, I don’t think it’s suppose to do that.
I say it out loud. She answers with a naughty word and then throws all the milk in the toilet, even the stuff that ain’t bumpy. She gives me a glass of water, at least it doesn’t go all lumpy and squishy like the milk does.
I go outside and sit on a stump and eat my breakfast. A stump is very useful. I use mine for a table. I kneel down in front of it and eat over the stump. That way when my food falls out of my hands, it falls on the stump. That makes it so much better then picking it up out of the dirt. It doesn’t matter how well I wash it off, it still tastes like dirt.
After I finish eating my breakfast, I ask mommy,
“Can I please go to Jorge’s house.”
I remember my manners. Good boys always say please and thank you. Mommy says something, I think she says,
“Yes you may, but you must play nice and share, and come home by lunch time, and don’t
bother Jorge’s mamá.”
But I’m not sure. I went over to Jorge’s house. It’s a real house, with windows and doors and everything. It has a grassy front yard that crackles when I walk on it. It tickles my feet ever so much, that all I want to do is giggle when I walk on it. The house has real walls that hold it up, and they are painted a light blue. They match perfectly Jorge’s play clothes. I want to see what he is up to, anything is better then what I’m doing, but he’s doing nothing, nothing at all.
Jorge is about a year younger then I am. He’s family is very rich, he has more toys and games then a boy would ever need, and he doesn’t share, not one thing! Even with a boy like me who has no toys or games what-so-ever, It’s not fair.
“Hi, Jorge.”
“Hiya, Miguel.”
“Whatcha doing?”
“Nut-an.”
“Ya wanna do something?”
“Uh huh.”
“Like what?”
“Dunno. Let’s go over to your house and do something!”
“What’s to do over there?”
“Dunno. It’s your house, maybe somethun!”
So we go over to my house. It’s the same as when I left it, it’s boring. After a long, long time of doing nothing, Jorge found a big oversize foot print in the dirt. At first I thought it must be a dinosaur, but I don’t think there would be any, and I would think that they would have destroyed at least one house by now. Someone, I think it was a grown-up – not one of mommy’s customers – said that dinosaurs like to stomp on things, like houses and stuff. So I don’t think that’s it. Me and Jorge decide that it must be a rhinoceros, and we must save the neighborhood from this cunning and dangerous beast.
Even his foot print looks harmful. We must do are duty to protect and serve, to keep the place safe for little children like us. Since I am one of the biggest scary cats, especially with rhinoceros, and I don’t like daunting adventures, I have devised a clever plan to capture, then tame that treacher-ous beast.
My clever plan is so clever ‘cus it’s so simple. The first thing we need to do is find us a good rope. Seňor Pera has a rope on his front porch. It’s all dusty with a cat sleeping in the hole in it’s middle. It doesn’t look like Seňor Pera has been using it much lately, except for Seňor Gato. I’m sure he won’t mind if I take it for awhile, especially if I return it in good shape, then Seňora Gato can have his bed back.
I knock on his door, and a long time later he opens the door. After talking about the weather and how this is good weather for rhinoceros, I go on to tell him of the dangers of having a wild beast, like a rhinoceros running around on the loose, scaring and hurting little children like us. I then tell him about my clever plan to capture, then tame that treacher-ous beast. I then ask him politely ― I remember my manners ― if I can use his rope for my trap. He smiles, with his silver tooth sparkling in the sunlight. He says,
“Go right ahead, but put it back like you found it when you’re done.”
I promised him that I would. And with his rope in my hands, I go to my favorite tree to set up my “rinotrap.” All trees have something special about them, just like people. And some people becomes friends with special trees in their lives. My favorite tree is also my special tree. He gives me so much more than something to play on. He gives me shade when Seňor Sol is really hot in the sky. I found a place really up high, where I can nest just like a bird, and take a nap. When I’m lonely and life is treating me unfair, I talk to him and he always listens to me, without calling me names or interrupting me. And when I’m really hungry and mommy doesn’t have anything for me to eat, I sometimes can climb really high and find a ripe mango or two. Those gifts from him have really helped me when I needed them the most.
Seňor Pera’s rope has what he called a “slip knot” on one of it’s ends. I put the other end of the rope through the slip knot hole, making a big circle. It has to be extremely large for the big, oversized foot print of that evil rhinoceros. If its not, my clever plan won’t work. I very cleverly with Jorge’s help, cover it up with the dirt. That way he can’t see it until it’s to late.
That big old goofy, oversized foot print is nowhere near my favorite tree, because of that, I’ll need to bait it, so I look around and find a big flat rock, and I put it right smack in the middle of the trap. I then put a small lump of peanut butter on top of the rock.
Since I love Peanut butter, everyone else must also love it too, right? Including cunning and dangerous rhinoceros. The flat rock is one of my better ideas. It keeps the peanut butter from getting all dirty. Once mommy made me one of her specialty treats. It’s a tortilla peanut butter sandwich. But the peanut butter fell out of the tortilla, and onto the dirt, of course after it bounced off of my toes first. I then had no choice, but to pick it up, and eat it anyway. It wasn’t very good that way, So, if I don’t like it that way, then I’m sure that the rhinoceros must also hate it that way too. This is one of the biggest reasons why I now fold my tortilla in half just before I eat it.
I climb higher and higher in my tree. I need both of my hands for climbing, so I have to hold the rope between my teeth. It tastes horrible. I should of washed the dirt, cat hair, and all those other gross things off of it first, oh well.
I’m keeping an eagle eye out for a good strong branch. It has to be big enough to pick up that dangerous rhinoceros. But when I’m about to give up on the idea, I find the perfect branch. It’s big and strong, not with so many small branches coming off of it. It’s as near perfect as I’m going to find. I throw the rope over to the branch and miss it completely. This is harder then I thought it would be. I try once again, but this time I almost loose my balance. I look down, that’s a bad idea. I think of that rhyme I once learned,
“Miguel be nimble, Miguel be quick, Miguel jumps over the candle stick.”
I try once again, but this time, I’m quick and nimble, and this time it worked. I then pull the rope down to the ground from over the side of the branch.
The rope gets all tangled up around one of my foots. When I try to free up my foot by kicking at the rope, it gets even more tangled, even up my leg a little bit. It’s kinda like when a fly is stuck in a spiders web. The more he tries, the more stucker he gets, that’s me!
I slip off the stupid branch and fall, fall, fall to my death, or worse than that. I know I’m going to hurt myself badly, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m falling to that stupid ground, but that stupid rope tightens up around my leg, it’s breaking my stupid fall, it’s probably going to cut me into two. Then that stupid rope starts to dig in and is hurting me. I find myself hanging upside down, just a little bit above the ground, by only one of my legs.
I’m finding myself swinging side by side. As I swing on by, I see Jorge standing there upside down too. He’s trying to stand on his head. He falls forward, and begins a wild case of the giggles.
“Get my mommy”
I yell at him through a storm of tears. That stupid rope is really hurting me. I know for sure that when I get down from here, my one rope leg will be all stretchy and it will be much longer then my regular leg. Maybe mommy will will hang me upside down so that my other leg will match. I can see that there’s a lot more hurts coming my way.
Mommy comes to the tree, the one that I’m swinging from, and not the other one that’s now a stump. She looks at me, then that flat rock with the peanut butter on it. She asks me an odd question, even for her.
“Miguel, How old are you?”
She should know by now, she’s my mommy.
“I’m five and a half, of a half.”
“You’re big enough boy by now, it’s time for you to act your age!”
“But, but, I am. I am acting my age.”
She got me untangled from that fine mess that I had gotted myself into. And my dear mommy swatted my bottom a few times for good measure. She storms back into the house, huffing and puffing like a choo-choo that’s going up a tall hill. I’m watching her in her meanness, as I rub my bottom, thinking how unlucky I am today. Jorge stops his giggling long enough to say,
“What’s the matter with your mamá, she’s mad all the time!”
“She’s alright, I’ve known her all of my life. She sometimes, just has these ‘episodes’.”
I don’t think he understands, and sometimes I don’t think I do either. With one hand I am still running my hand up and down, rubbing my bottom, and with my the other hand, I’m winding up the rope, just like I found it. The cat meows at me as I put it back on Seňor Pera’s porch. Seňor cat settles into the tummy of that coiled rope. I’m just in time for his afternoon nap. I knock on Seňor Pera’s door. After he answers, I thank him very much for giving me his rope. Manners are very important.
Soon after that Jorge’s mamá calls him home for his lunch. I go inside my own house and press my luck with my very own mommy.
“Mommy, I’m hungry.”
“why? I already fed you today!”
I just look at her, she looks back at me with that “look.” I slowly back away from her, and walk slowly towards the doorway.
“Get back over here!”
I go over to her, she is still giving me that “look.” I’m hoping that she doesn’t eat me, like those black widow spiders do. She very casually gives me two tortillas, but with no peanut butter.
“Go on outside, and get that peanut butter off of that rock. That peanut butter was suppose to be for your lunch. We ain’t made of money you know.”
“Yes, mommy.”
I’m glad to get out of there. I even forgotten for awhile all about my stinging bottom, and the owy on my leg where that rope bit me. I go and get that peanut butter off the rock before the birds get it. I smear it on the tortillas and go over to the stump to eat it. Then I remember something important, I gots to get something to drink. Once I didn’t have anything and I choked when that stupid peanut butter got stuck in my throat. So, I go bravely into the house.
“Mommy can I have something to drink?”
“What now!”
“Can I please have something to drink?”
“There’s no milk”
“I know, can I please have som…”
“...you want some water?”
“Yes please.”
She gives me a glass of water. I thank her, and go outside to my stump to eat my lunch.
When I get back to my lunch, there’s a stupid cat eating my lunch. I quickly grab a stick, run up to it, and chase it away, that naughty cat, stealing my food like that. I now have all that I need, I can now eat my lunch in peace and quiet.
A customer of mommy comes by. He’s a little weird. As he passes by, he says to me,
“Hello there, little man.”
“Hi.”
He stops and squats down in front of me, and asks,
“How old are you becoming?”
“I’m five and half of a half.”
“Oh I see.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me around, so that my back is in front of him.
“What do you see out there?”
“I see the street and a few cars”
“You know what I see?
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer.
“I can see your future.”
I turn my head around to look at him. He puts his one arm around my middle, and the other one he gently puts on my shoulder, and turns me away from him again. I think his arm around my middle is to keep me from running away from him.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I want to be a space man.”
He moves his hand off my shoulder and rubs my tummy with it.
“I think you are going to be a famous person like Buddha.”
He whispers in my one ear,
“Or you’ll be like your mamá and become a gigolo. Just say the word if you want to practice.”
He whispers in my other ear. Then just as suddenly as the weirdness began, he leaves and goes into the house to see my mommy. And finally he stops bothering me.
Just then Jorge comes back over. He’s full to the top in himself with complaints, they’re all about how bad his lunch was. Such as he doesn’t like it when his beans are touching his rice. And there was so much cheese in his enchiladas, it was making it really hard to eat. His drink had many fizzes in it, causing the bubbles to go up his nose. And if his mamá would have told him that he was getting an ice cream sundae for dessert, he would of left room in his tummy for it. Poor, poor Jorge. I wish I had his problems.
“I’m sorry for your problems.”
“Uh huh.”
“You want to do something to take your mind off of your troubles?”
“Uh huh.”
“Like what?”
“Dunno.”
“How about a game?”
“OK.”
We went over to the eating table. It sits there all wobbly, ‘cuss it broke one of it’s legs, when mommy threw it across the yard while she was having an “episode”. Mommy didn’t take it to a table doctor to get it fix up like she should of. So it didn’t heal properly. I drag it over so that it’s next to that eating stump of mine, that will help it to stop wobbling so much.
I then sneak into the house, all quiet like. I don’t want to disturb mommy’s wrestling with that weird man. I get her red lip paint and bring it outside with me. Mommy uses the red paint, when she wants to look special, especially for her best customers, like when Seňor Vera comes by every Sunday. She thinks it makes herself look prettier.
I take it to the wobbly table and I make lines that go back and forth, and then criss-crossing, making a bunch of little squares that are hooked together.
Me and Jorge go out to the road, dodging cars to bring back these small rocks. They have these smooth bottoms with clunky tops. I put mine on one end of the table so that they are just inside my squares. Jorge does the same on his side of the table.
The rules are simple, so even Jorge can understand them. You push your rocks one at a time forward, except when you want to take someones rock, then you jump kitty-corner. You know, I don’t really know why they call it that, it has nothing to do with kittens or cats for that matter.
Once you jump over his rock, it’s yours to have. When you have all of the rocks, you win the game. Pretty easy, Huh! I call my game “jumping rocks.”
In the middle of the game, Jorge got so mad at me, I guess ‘cuss I had almost all of his rocks. He had an “episode”, and started throwing the rest of the rocks at me. He’s yelling, cheater, cheater, cheater at the top of his lungs. Or maybe It’s because I moved one of his rocks by mistake. I wonder what the neighbors will think.
But how was I suppose to know, all the rocks look the same to me. Next time, I’ll paint his rocks with mommy’s lip paint. But to be completely honest – ‘cuss good boys are always honest – Jorge has gotten upset in other games too. He has had “episodes” with me, when he doesn’t win. I think he’s a sore looser, even when he is winning. But right now, I have a much bigger problem staring me in the face.
My first problem is my mommy, she is really, really mad at me for using up her red lip paint. I can see smoke coming out of her ears, that’s really how mad she is at me. Her yelling and screaming is deafening, It’s stinging my ears. Then to make matters even worse, she pulls off one of her flip flops and whips my bottom real good with it. So good in fact that she breaks it in two. My poor bottom stings, worse than my ears do by a whole lot. I am now completely lost in a big old nasty snot storm.
My second problem appears later. It seems that Jorge got some of mommy’s red lip paint all over his clothes, ruining his brand new clothes completely. His mamá comes over, yelling at my mommy, then mommy turns to me and yells at me once more. Pulling down my clothes and whipping my bare bottom with her other flip flop, tearing it all up in the process. This of course makes her even madder at me, ’cuss I made her break her only pair of flops.
She uses all kinds of naughty words on me. Some of them I’ve never heard before. I get yet another whipping, just ‘cuss. This is definitely not a good day to be me.
Tonight like every night. I know what were having for supper. If it’s Monday, Wednesday or Friday we are having Rice & Beans. If it’s Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, it will be Beans & Rice. As a special treat for Sunday, Mommy will put in some hot sauce to make it extra special.
Most times, when I can, I try to get away to the outside, away from the mean and weird grown-ups. I find that I have fewer “episodes” with mommy and her customers that way. A really good place for me to go without getting into trouble for leaving the yard is to climb up into the tree, or climb up on the roof of my and mommy’s house. If I lay flat, I’m almost invisible to everyone, except to god and the angels above.
Yesterday I ask mommy something,
“Mommy can I please start going to mass, so I can learn all about heaven and the angels above.”
“No. You don’t have the special clothes that you would need, and we don’t have that Kinda money to be wasted on such shit.”
She ended that with a naughty word, I’m sorry to say.
“Besides you can’t go there alone, and I won’t step foot inside there.”
So there, like God, My mommy has spoken, and now there is something else that I can’t do. So I can’t be like other boys and girls.
Up here on the roof, one of the bestest things to do, is look up at the beautiful blue sky. I imagine that I’m flying, I’m darting in and out of the clouds. I’m doing loopy loops lazily in the sky, or flying with a flock of birds. It’s one of my favorite things to do in the land of make believe.
Looking upwards, I see the clouds from both sides. I see happy go lucky clouds with their white fluff hanging out about their edges. They look so joyful up there, poking about. It seems to take them forever to go from one side of the sky to the other. I don’t know where they go after they reach the edge of the sky, but I trust that they know where they’re going. Maybe they go beyond where I can see to another sky someplace else. It’s kinda like when I leave my yard and go over to Jorge’s house. Or maybe they go back to where they started from in the night, when it’s way too dark to see them.
Sometimes I see clouds that are bumping into each other. I think it’s a game of cloud tag. I believe it’s something that they like to play, when they want to be silly, and have some fun at the same time. I can imagine that life as a cloud is pretty boring thing to be, without some kind of games like that.
Lately the clouds have been looking sad, with their long faces, and gloomy eyes. I feel sorry for them. I wish I could cheer them up, but I can’t think of anything that I can do. But sometimes they look angry, but other times they look really happy, like my mommy does sometimes. It’s the craziest thing.
One of the hand, there are the naughty clouds, They ain’t fluffy, they have a flat top, like a table, and are very dark, almost black. They’re very evil looking. They are the mean ones. The ones who take great delight in dumping huge amounts of rain on good little boys and girls like us, especially when we would like to go outside and play.
Sometimes the wind blows really hard. It blows so hard that I think it’s going to blow us all the way up to Mexico. And I don’t want to live there, I like it here. When the wind blows that hard, I believe it makes the happy white fluffy clouds into the angry and mean ones. They turn from white fluffy into dark black clouds right in front of my eyes, honest. I wonder does it also work the same for a snot storm. When people, especially Jorge has an “episode.” Snot begins to fly, just like in a rain storm. Do you think if the wind blows really hard, it would also blow away Jorge’s snot storm? Hmm.
I show those clouds a thing or two. I’ll go outside and play anyway. I’ll go stomping in the mud puddles, make mud pies, and get drinks of water from the falling rain. All kinds of fun stuff. More then once, I’ve went out searching for rainbows, and its golden pots. I find them more often when their ain’t that many mean black clouds in the sky. I mean rainbows, and not the pots of gold, but I’ll keep looking for those too.
One question that I do have. Why do they have to be so mean. I’ve never done anything to those nasty black clouds. Why don’t they play nice, or pick on someone their own size. I try real hard to be a good boy, but sometimes things happen. There’s no reason for them to rain on my parade.
Some other times, when I look up, the clouds look like cartoon people. Once I saw a cloud clown, getting into a cloud clown car on one side and getting out of it on the other side. It was so funny to me that I couldn’t stop giggling to myself. But now that I’m so much older now, I probably wouldn’t find it funny anymore.
I like watching the baby clouds. I can imagining them as their comforting mamá clouds watch over her little baby clouds as they play. Sometimes even playing with them; like playing tag or hide and seek. I’ve seen a small baby cloud hide behind his much bigger mamá cloud. They’re playing a game of peek-a-boo. It’s a fun thing to watch. But sometimes, I see the children clouds, they are running away from their mamá clouds. They must have done something naughty, like dump rain on us little children below. I call them “bully clouds”.
I wish I had some carrots to eat. I need help in seeing heaven up in the clouds, especially those clouds around the pearly gates. It’s these gates that the grown-ups keep talking about. I’m also looking for angels. I’m keeping an eye out for them, but there tricky to spot. I thought I saw one once a long time ago, but I’m not sure.
I mentioned it to mommy, she thought I was nuts. She laughed at me, and not in a good way either. It was then that I learned some valuable lessons; I learned that laughing with someone is good, but laughing at someone is bad. I also learned to keep, the seeing of angels to myself. And I learned you can’t always trust your mommy.
I see two itsy-bitsy clouds that have smooched together, and poof like magic, they become one. And sometimes I see a humongous cloud get stretched into ity-bity smaller clouds. Kinda like what I do with my peanut butter tortilla sandwich. I wonder does the angels go about tearing up the clouds like that, like Jorge does with his toys? Or does someone else do that instead? Like, maybe God!
I like it up here on the roof. It’s so relaxing. I feel that I’m closer to God and his heaven. It’s a good feeling being a live. This is a good day to be me after all.