{i miss paper letters}

She did not want to believe him capable of such insensitivity.  Had he really said that to her—that the imposition of the white ranks of clouds had ruined his plans for their afternoon?  Had he really implied that there was no place for them, in the whole of the sky?  That they should be vacuumed out somehow and banished for eternity?  What’s more, had he really forgotten that first conversation they’d had on the quadrangle so many years ago, when he’d been a meteorology enthusiast and had extolled the many virtues of the cumulus, the underrated charm of the cirrocumulus, the beautiful iridescence of the nacreous?  This was the real rub.

How had it come to this?  He seemed to take issue with everything, these days—even the things that had brought him nothing but joy in his youth, like the clouds, were not immune to his recent transformation to curmudgeonly-ness.  She didn’t like it, not one bit, and if something didn’t change his attitude soon she would have to begin exploring other options.