The day clouds turned solid

"Throw towards me", a kid screamed to his sister. "Don't miss it this time, mind the wind," she replied just when she was taking the position to throw the frisbee towards her brother. Whoosh... It flew high in the air from her hands, searching her brother. I traced the trajectory of the frisbee. Swirling in the air, darkened by the setting sun in the backdrop, it flew, gradually being pulled by the gravity. The kid, he may have catched it, as I could hear him cry, "Gotcha!" Did I not see? Well, I was frozen like a statue moulded to face the sky. Sun was at about 30° to the ground, taking the opportunity to scatter its longer wavelengths, now that it was near the horizon; not that someone can stop it from doing it. The sky was like the sky always is, but orangish. Orange was the vogue then, and clouds at distance outlined themselves in orange foam. The trees next to me, were dark but had a surface coating of an orange tint on the edges. Sea, well, the orange was running through its veins and waves, obviously.

I saw the frisbee flew again in front of me, but in the other direction. A train of clouds was passing by in the background, pretty heavy I would say. Clouds, they are miraculous, they get the freedom to take any shape they can't think of before taking one, as if they are the God of morphosis. Birds flew to their homes, not that I know all of their names, but I could see only their silhouettes.

One bird was flying alone, towards the clouds in its front. "Catch the bee, kid!" I heard the girl say to her brother. And there it whooshed in front of me, blocking my view of the alone bird that was flying. The bird went into the cloud, it seemed.

Few seconds passed, yet the bird didn't find its way out. Lost its way, huh? Well, clouds can be like a maze but one can come running in any direction and the clouds won't stop you.

I was getting curious but worried at the same time. I walked a little towards the clouds, allowed my eyes to adjust on the clouds, focused and I exclaimed, "What!" That little bird didn't lose its way, it was enjoying the wind, sitting on the clouds.

Yes, it was sitting on the clouds. How can clouds let the bird do that? They are technically water, so things sink down in water, but more technically, they are gas, things don't sit on gas; it, the water, has to freeze to ice so as for a thing not to sink. Oh. Wait. Did those cotton patches turn to rigid ice, all of a sudden? That seemed to be the situation, however implausible it is.

I thought, "It's so ironic. That poor bird is sitting on it, enjoying the air pretty calmy, and here I am sweating, imagining the consequences of what can happen."

My mind started its imagination motors and off they went.

It's not natutal, first of all. If something's unnatural, then we better be ready for the aftermath. Questions began to galore my imagination land. Is our sun dying? I looked at it, which was firing hues of orange as it always did at sunset. Is it the beginning of a neo-Ice Age? Will the mammoths return? Wait. Will we be able to bear this cold?

Rain falls when clouds can no longer fight against gravity for water. And now it's ice. Holy crystal ice! I could imagine the RMS Titanic then, a piece of iceberg broke it down. What if clouds yield to gravity and collapse on us? Heavy rains can cause floods. What heavy clouds can cause is a catastrophic event, distopia. Houses shattered like glass, trees killed to ground, land shaking like if it's a quake, except that the epicentre would be up above the surface. Earthquakes can open the gates to lava.

How ironic?! Something cold as ice welcomes something hot as lava.

Is that the end of world?

Memories of clouds like magnality illuminated, scary they were, but wary I wasn't, then. But now wasn't then, they didn't change, as scary as then, but I? I was wary.

A thought flew by, "At least the birds would get a place to rest. Good for birds. But wait, ice is cold, what if that cause frost-bite to birds' legs. Not good for birds, I corrected.

A light brought me out of my imagination world. A light that was coming from the glowing ice clouds. Did the bird turn into an ILLUMINATUS? Whoa! Am I crazy? The light amplified, not like a laser, but like a flood light. For goodness sake, did I get teleported to a stadium?

Then I heard a voice, "Dad?" I was wide awake on my bed. Tick tock said it was 2.35 am. My daughter Athena was studying at her desk, but not at that moment; she was staring at me. The bedroom light was glaring with all its intensity. "Are you all right?", I heard Athena ask me. I was too terrified to answer. I skedaddled to the window. Out of breath, I exclaimed, "It's happening, it came true. The dream is real. It's snowing. The clouds of ice are bursting to ice and snow. Athena, did you see it?"

I was sweating in spite of the cold.

"Of course, it's snowing. It's Russia. It snows in Russia", Athena replied with a face that was trying to figure out what was wrong with me.

I said, "Oh."