The Sparrow Who Counted Clouds

Chidi the sparrow could not sleep.

Her brothers were asleep. Her mother was asleep. Even the wind in the neem tree was only whispering. But Chidi's head was full of the day: the kite that had nearly caught her tail, the crumbs outside the bakery, the cat. Oh, the cat.

"Close your eyes and count something," her mother murmured.

Chidi looked up through the leaves. The sky was deep blue, and across it the clouds were walking, slow and soft.

"One," whispered Chidi. The first cloud was shaped like a puri. It floated past without a sound.

"Two." This one looked like a sleeping buffalo.

"Three." A boat, with nobody in it.

She breathed in as each cloud came, and breathed out as it went. In... and out. The clouds did not hurry, and so Chidi did not hurry.

"Four." A feather.

"Five." Was it a pillow? It was certainly a pillow.

The kite drifted out of her head. The crumbs drifted away. The cat became very small and far off, and then it was only a cloud too, a round sleepy one, going home.

"Six..."

The seventh cloud came by, soft and slow. It waited a little.

But nobody counted it.

Chidi's head was under her wing. Her feathers rose and fell, in... and out. And the clouds went on walking across the sky, all night long, counting themselves.