Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a white cloud flying around the sky, minding its own business.
It always flew alone and disliked everyone, as it couldn’t get along with the other clouds. Its snobby attitude made the other clouds very angry.
In fact, they gossiped that one day, while floating with its nose in the air, the white cloud bumped into a tree and had to wander around bandaged for days.
One day, while the white cloud was floating high up in the sky with its nose in the air, it encountered a black cloud. It looked at the black cloud and said, “Boo! What kind of cloud are you? Your clothes are covered in mud.”
The black cloud simply smiled and replied, “But I am a rain cloud; rain clouds are black,” and moved on.
The white cloud quickly moved away from it, as it truly did not want any black color to rub off on it. Then it went toward the sun. When the sun’s long arms reached out to it, the white cloud felt faint from the heat and shouted, “Aww, stay away from me!”
When it moved a little further away, it saw something huge coming toward it. It was a giant white cloud—no, wait, not a cloud—it must be a bird, it thought. Then it decided it wasn’t a bird either. Since it was so full of itself, it didn’t think it was appropriate to ask anyone, but it was nearly bursting with curiosity.
It started circling this huge white bird. It was an airplane, and the airplane was not pleased with the white cloud’s interest.
Because there were passengers inside, and with the cloud circling around, the pilot couldn’t see left or right. “Hey, move out of the way!” said the airplane. The white cloud looked around, gliding like a swan. No one had ever treated it so rudely before. Filled with great admiration, it started following the plane.
The airplane suddenly spewed its smoke right onto the white cloud. That black smoke coming from the engines turned the white cloud pitch black. The white cloud took out the mirror it always carried and looked at its condition—it was on the verge of tears.
The mirror dropped from its hand, and it started running around erratically. “Help! Help me, I’m black!” it screamed, but to no avail. No one paid any attention to it.
Because of its past arrogance, it had fallen out with all its friends, and now everyone who saw it simply turned their backs and walked away.
The white cloud continued the rest of its life as a black cloud.
