The Boy with the black cloud over his head.

This is the story of a boy who was very smart and had a bright future ahead of him. However, he could not see this.


When he was young, he was ahead of everyone, in time and in class. He knew everything the teachers were trying to teach. Some kids even wondered if he could see the future. Years went by and he saw the real world, the unkindness of strangers, the weird games kids used to play. The boy did not understand these things. He would tell lies to get by, he would try and turn the tables so he would not have to do these things. People understood him, but all they wanted was his knowledge.


As he grew older, he would scare himself even further. He was bullied. Day after day. He suffered from claustrophobia. The kids knew this, so they would use this fear against him. A year later, his best friend died. A day before that, she made a phone call and he did not speak to her, as he was going out to play with friends. This affected him deeply, in such a way that he believed it was her ghost, her haunting that made things worse for him. He could not sleep alone. An eleven-year old kid unable to sleep on his own. He did not cry, he did not say a word when he heard of his friend's death. He held back the tears for ten years.


He went to different countries and he felt like none of them could be called 'home'. He made friends, and things changed. No one bullied him, but he lost interest in school. Friends would become blurry faces, and walking around would make him dizzy. He would fall for every girl but his self esteem was destroyed in such a way he could not muster up courage to even look into the girl's eyes. He would watch every year as someone else took the place he wanted. All he wanted was a little affection. 


Years went by and he became depressed. He had his joys, he would listen to his favourite tunes and smile, but inside, he was not half the kid he wished he was. For years after that episode of depression, he would enter a constant cycle where things were at an all-time high. He would find a beautiful girl he liked, a group of friends that would stick by him in the good and bad, and his life would go back to "normal". In a couple of months that would shift to rock bottom. 

After two cycles, one night, the boy prayed to God, even though he was quite the skeptic and used to fear "Him". He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling and saw a black cloud, pouring rain over his head. The next morning, he asked his mother if there was a leak of some sort on the house. His mother replied that he brought his black cloud into the house, and that it was his responsibility to take it out. However, as another cycle was starting, he did not notice the black cloud was still there.


He blamed the black cloud on every failure. On every misstep he would make. On every insult he would say to people, on every decision he thought was wrong, on the friends who would betray him or leave him because he did not agree on things they would, on his misfortune when it came to being loved and how the "stupidest" people he knew found someone and he remained alone. People would tell him to lighten up. He just didn't listen. He claimed he could see the future and for him, it was bleak and lonely. People would not speak to him of these problems anymore. He was also a master when it came to hide these problems, but everyone could notice the black cloud. Even in bits and pieces, it was there. It would not stop following him.


One day, the boy met a girl. She was the sunshine to his black cloud. But the boy had closed his mind so bad he lost her within a month. He would regret this the way someone would regret not saving a dying child. All of a sudden, he found himself lost in this world with no direction home. He did not even feel he had a home, anyway.
A year went by, and he seemed to take care of his wounds on its own, but for the first time, he asked for help. And he received it. He thought things had changed. But the black cloud was still there, raining over him, its raindrops black as coal, its smell as horrible as the combination of every contaminated lake and every sewer in the planet. But he would ignore this.


The boy met another girl, and this time, he thought he could be a normal person, but rushed things out and ended up scaring her away. He insulted her, he told her terrible things, he said "no" to her friendship. It was an "all or nothing" problem for him. A week later, he was filled with regret. He asked for forgiveness, as he always did, but this time, his apologies were not accepted, and it was over... and all of a sudden, the boy realized there was no black cloud over him. He was the black cloud. His soul was black as coal. He was a boy trapped in a young man's body. He did this to himself. All the years that went by, he took everything so seriously he never nurtured and loved himself. He just wanted this from anyone else but him. He realized the wrong he had done to himself and others.


The boy cried himself to sleep, black raindrops pouring all over him, covering him in coal. He wanted to burn alive for what he had done. He knew he could change things and start over, but the past would burn his heart all the way to his back. He knew this was all in his head, but he did not know how to find a solution to this problem. He vowed he would make the black cloud disappear no matter what as a thunderstorm roared nearby.