Blue & Gray

Blue & Gray

by Madison Amos

It was a cloudy dull morning and I woke up sluggishly, head blurry from the sudden awakening. I sit up slowly, staring blankly at the cream walls for a couple of minutes before I finally get up and head to the bathroom. After I clean myself up and get dressed for work, I look outside the window noticing the light drizzle falling from my neighboring cloud. I sigh for what feels like the hundredth time today, already feeling the fatigue setting in. Living in the clouds so high above others and seeing places, creatures, and animals from high up is fascinating and a big excitement. At least at first.

I remember how skeptical I was at first when my manager told me that I was moving to the clouds. It sounded cool, sure, and everyone with any type of social media platform was already living there, but I couldn’t and still don’t get it. I’ve never been into following the trends but as an upcoming singer/songwriter they say “It’s better to stay in the trend than out of it.” And moving from Dae, my hometown, was a really big change for me. Dae was on the other side of the world where the times are dated, slow-paced, and old-fashioned. Compared to Dae, Soul, the city I live in now, is more advanced and fast-paced. I eventually learned how to adapt to my new home, but it was a real struggle. However, nothing could prepare me for what life was like living in the clouds.

Ever since I moved to the clouds, I feel tired, unmotivated, and alone even though I’m not. I can’t even write a song, which is probably the worst thing since that is my job and basically the whole reason I’m living here in the first place. I feel like I’m in a ticking time box where it closes in on me every time I seem to think. Everything distracts me but never fully captures my attention. My mind feels like it’s going a mile a minute but I never seem to gather any coherent thoughts and as the days go by, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I try to find ways to cope with all this by writing to my grandparents who still live in Dae more frequently but my grandpa was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, obviously causing delays in me receiving letters. When I got the letter I remember being at the studio and being so ecstatic to finally receive

a letter from my beloved grandparents that I opened it right away.

As I was reading the letter, my heart was picking up it’s pace. I was feeling more frightened and worried for my grandparents as I continued to read and without even realizing it, salty tears started streaming down my face and onto the loose leaf paper. All the stress and frustration I felt before reading the letter doubled along with new emotions, causing me to curl up tightly and cry harder.

On the less advanced side of the world, where Dae is located, technology is illegal, so I can’t even contact them to see how they are doing. So that was another thing I had to deal with.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

There was a loud knock on my front door causing me to lazily drag my feet to the brown wooden door.

“Who is it?”

“Your best friend.” I heard a familiar voice reply, causing me to open the door and when I saw her face I could already tell she’s upset.

“Why are you still not dressed?” Chaemin said, tapping her foot impatiently.

“I am dressed, I’m just putting on my shoes,” I said, slipping on my pair of shoes.

“Good good because being an hour late, now would finally be a good time to put on your shoes,” she said sarcastically.

“Okay okay. I get it, I’m late, let’s just go already,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading out the door. Chaemin followed close behind. It was nice to be outside, there was a nice breeze and it kinda calmed me, but you see, when living on clouds you always have to be hyper-aware because all of a sudden I was falling through white fluffy clouds and into mid air along with Chaemin, and surprisingly I wasn’t as scared as all the other times, but my heart still skips a few beats and lungs still clench like a tightening fist. It made me feel free in a way. The breeze was so strong and cool causing goosebumps to fill my body and my mind to be in another place but just when I was getting used to the feeling, a big purple and black wing scoops me up. When I opened my eyes, I frantically searched for my friend, only to find her a few inches away from me and looking dazed out.

“Where the heck are we?”

“In the wings of a dragon.”

“Uh what do you mean in the wings of a dragon? Oh my god! We’re gonna die, I can practically feel it-”

“Calm down, we’re fine,” I said, cutting her off. “Have you never been caught by a dragon?”

“No, I have not-” she said before she got cut off again by the wing opening up, revealing the gray sky. As we step out from the scaly place, we turn our heads to see a black and purple scaled dragon with the coldest emerald green eyes. This dragon isn’t alive per se but if you didn’t know better you could be mistaken.

“Thank you for catching us,” I say towards the dragon, who just looks at me and hums before flying back below the clouds to catch the next falling victims.

“They can speak too?!”

“You sound surprised, but you’ve been living here for over two weeks now.”

“Yeah, but unlike you I don’t have the habit of falling out of clouds every other day.”

“It’s not everyday, just some days and when I do it’s usually because I get too caught up in myself but that never happens to you since you’re such a tight-” I said, but get cut off quickly by another dragon, this time dark blue and gray with brown eyes and a similar build to the last one. However, unlike the first dragon, this one had a slight mechanical gleam in their eyes. It looks so fascinating seeing these creatures and I honestly am really grateful for them, since I probably would’ve already died if they weren’t made. And then suddenly I got an idea.

“You know, you’re gonna be my new inspiration,” I said with a grin on my face as I stared at the dragon, who looked back at me with a confused look.

“What do you mean, the dragons’ gonna be your inspiration? It’s a dragon for god sakes,” Chaemin says, looking at me like I was crazy.

“Well, as you know, I’ve been in a real slump lately so maybe this dragon can be my new inspiration,” I reply, studying the dragon and it’s enlarged features. “Hey, actually you know what, I’m gonna stay with this guy . . . or girl . . . for the day and maybe I’ll finally write something good.”

“Fine but I’m not coming with you and when the manager yells at you for skipping rehearsal, don’t come complaining to me,” she said, rolling her eyes and walking away from me to catch the next flying taxi.

“Hmm, I guess it’s just you and me then.” I hummed, reaching

my hand to touch the rough scales cautiously. I circled the dragon noticing the letters “JK” imprinted on one of his scales.

“Is your name JK?” I asked to which I just got a quick nod in reply.

“Okay then JK, I know this may seem weird but I’m just here to watch you because today you will be my inspiration.” I said dramatically, opening my arms wide in a big gesture, that just got ignored by the blue and gray dragon as it walked past me and flew below the cloud for a second before arriving in front of me with a weeping toddler in its left wing.

Not much later a teary-eyed middle aged woman comes running towards the child and pulls the little boy in her arms, giving the dragon a small thank you before leaving again.

“That was really nice,” I say, looking at the dragon with wide eyes.

“Well, it’s what I’m programmed to do,” The dragon’s deep voice rumbles causing my eyes to go wider.

“Wow, you spoke.”

“Yeah, so?” he asked, face showing his confusion.

“Nothing, I just didn’t expect you to speak back to me.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he says before flying off again, but this time he just flies freely in the air, passing through the vacant clouds. He does a few tricks and spins as his wings go up and down in a focused motion, capturing me in his skills. I stand there just watching his movements before I finally take out my phone and start typing quickly.

After that day I came almost everyday to see JK and was even able to finish half of my song. However, one day when I came to watch from my designated spot, I saw JK flying to catch a young man, but so was another dragon. Everyone watching became tense, knowing what could happen. When they collided into each other, the other dragon was smashed on his impacted side, while JK spinned before smoke started to puff out slowly causing the sky to turn gray and smell gastly.

“What happened to the guy that was falling?” someone shouts, causing everyone to look at the place where the young man was and I felt my stomach twist slowly realizing that the man was no longer there. My eyes frantically search for the guy but it’s pointless in the end. Then, a big boom is heard and when I turn my head I see both dragons burning up in flames, causing everyone to panic and run endlessly. But as I said before, you always have to be composed when living

on clouds because then everyone who was panicking started falling through the clouds one by one and because I somewhat mastered not falling through clouds, I didn’t fall. There was screaming everywhere and pleas of help while some people got saved by dragons and some others just fell into their despair. There was really agony everywhere. Barely anything could be seen because of the red flames and the big puffs of smoke. The smell was intense, making me dizzy and the noise made my head fuzzy. And finally when the air sorta cleared up JK was nowhere in sight and I already knew that he was dust carried away by the wind. I felt a tear roll down my cheek and I scoffed at myself at how crazy it was that I was crying over a dragon.

“Taelry, where are you?” I hear a voice shout but I don’t say anything back and instead just look up through my blurry eyes.

“Oh, there you are,” The voice says again. I finally register it as Chaemin.

“Yeah,” I mumble and I can see her just staring at me before pulling me into a warm hug. I appreciated the hug and her being there for me, but it still couldn’t lift the heaviness in my chest. My head was buried in her shoulder, but I could still see the images of the chaos and it really made me think about living in the clouds. Why has living in the clouds become so popular when living here can be so stressful and agonizing? Because me living here has never made me constantly happy and I can say that living here has made this year one of the worst in my life.