I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

The door won’t open. Not because I don’t have my keys. Not this time. No, I’m pleased to say that this is an entirely not-my-fault situation. I only popped out to buy some nuts from Aldi, and now look. It’s opened an inch, but no matter how hard I push, it will not budge. Is it the cat, I think? Is she dead? Has she just died behind the door? But she’s not that heavy. Maybe the mirror’s fallen down? After a few seconds, I realise that I can end this infernal guessing by looking through the letterbox. The cat is there, but she’s definitely not dead. It’s a package, a long thin parcel that’s been posted through the letterbox at precisely the perfect angle to get wedged between the front door and the frame of the inner door. I need a stick. I turn and look around the front garden: no stick. I walk up and down the street: not a stick in sight. Why are there no sticks? I make a mental note to get one the next time I’m in a wood. I look up at the windows; they’re all shut. And what was I going to do if they were open – scale the wall? A hotness is rising inside me. It’s been about three minutes since this rigmarole began, but the fact that I was expecting to just open my door and go in and now I can’t — and it’s not even my fault – is exactly the kind of thing that makes me oscillate like a tectonic plate. I just want to go inside and decant my nuts and have a coffee – hang on. Yes. Eureka! I didn’t lock the back door when I let the cat in! Yes, my inability to lock that stupid door has finally paid off. Now I just need to get into our back garden. 

I knock on our next door neighbour’s door and garble my predicament. Sure, she says, but there isn’t much space to climb over – will I be able to manage? Yes, I say, as I step out of her back door, I’ll be fine. Luckily, she doesn’t stay to watch. 

I walk to the back of her garden and climb up onto the wall. From here, I can see what she meant. The gap is a sliver of space; too small for a child, really. We had a garden room built a few months ago and I didn’t realise how tiny the (once sizable) thoroughfare between our two gardens had become. Oh well. I turn sideways and step up into the nook, pushing myself in so that my front is pressed up against the tree trunk. And now I’m stuck. Between a tree and a garden room. I’m so instantly wedged in that I can just let my arms drop and I’m suspended there like a marionette. I lean my head back and look up. 

The sky is a whitewash of apathy. A great nothing. At least it’s not raining. I feel like I spent most of my childhood looking at the sky – from the grass, from my room, from the car window – mesmerised by the pictures in the clouds, by the floating ocean above my head. I could spend hours absorbed in it, consumed by it, happily lost. Where are the clouds now? I don’t just mean today, but in general. I’m sure there aren’t as many as there used to be. Is that a thing? Are there fewer clouds now? I need to look that up later. Doesn’t sound plausible, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a wave of fluffy clouds shaped like a dog or a jumper or a comma.

I bring my eyes back to earth, my hands back to the trunk. I try to wiggle myself through. It feels like my jumper’s going to rip. If only I’d lost my lockdown weight by now. I squeeze again, pushing as hard as I can. It feels a bit wrong, like my insides are being squished. In fact, this whole thing is starting to hover somewhere in the realm of getting indefinitely jammed, having to be rescued by the fire brigade and finding yourself on page seven of the local paper, underneath the headline: ‘I only went out for some nuts’. I unhook a twig from my jumper and push again. If only I hadn’t gone out to buy those fucking nuts. Nuts which I spent £13 on, now languishing on my doorstep while I live in a tree. Maybe it’s the thought of my nuts – my cashews, almonds and pistachios – that impels me to give a final big push. I’ve had enough, I think, I’m getting through even if I have to rupture my spleen. Just. A. Bit. More. Yes! My left foot reaches the ground. I’m free! I strut to the back door, triumphant, and push the handle. 

It doesn’t open. What. The. Fuck. So now what? Do I go back to the tree, back through the keyhole-sized gap, back through my neighbour's house? And then what? Maybe I should smash a window. How much would it cost to fix? I look around the garden as if the answer might be here, hidden in the grass, tucked behind a bush. I walk up and down. I do some squats. I pull my phone out of my pocket and think about calling someone – who, though? I was better off on the doorstep. At least I was in the whole world then. At least I could have gone somewhere. Now I’m caged in the garden, bound by fences and walls with nothing but a barren sky for company. I never saw a prisoner look with such a wistful eye upon that little tent of grey which prisoners call the sky. Was it grey or blue? The cat appears at the door and stares at me. I walk over and try to show her that I’m not abandoning her, I just can’t open the door. I push the handle to demonstrate: ‘It won’t open Ziba, see’. But it does; it opens! I obviously didn't push the handle hard enough before. I feel euphoric. What a treat to be inside my house, what a privilege, what a joy! I go through, move the offending package and open the front door. My nuts are still there! I decant them into the jar, and place them back on the shelf, admiring their fullness. I make myself a coffee and go into the living room. Here, looking out of the window, I remember the clouds. I pick up my phone and search: are there fewer clouds now? I feel stupid typing the question; a feeling instantly replaced by disbelief, and swiftly, horror. 

“Climate scientists predict that as Earth’s climate warms, there will also be fewer clouds to cool it down… as the world warms, clouds could disappear.” 

Jesus. I was expecting to be completely, laughably wrong. I can’t believe we’ve ruined the sky. All that free, transient beauty. And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard. Will I one day tell my grandchildren about clouds — the same way people talk about how you used to be able to leave your doors unlocked or the exhilaration of going to the video shop on a Friday night? Will I recount the joy of gazing out of your window and saying ‘Look, look at that one, it looks like a rabbit – can you see? That’s the tail and those are the ears…’ I let out a squeaky sigh, take a long sip of my coffee, and stare out at the patio coloured world.