Sky Painter

Above the clouds lives the man who paints the sky. Draped in a smock and with brush in hand, he has grown to love only his sanctuary within the air; however, there once was a time when he used to desire nothing more than leaving and exploring life on the ground rather than suspended above. Every few moons he thinks back on all the trouble his curiosity had caused; he remembers and tells his story to the other creatures of the sky so that whenever he again wishes to relive or recreate his adventure, the fowls remind him where he is most needed.
    Up before dawn then back to a misty bed of stars well after midnight, the painter had nothing to look forward to except the next day's canvas. It was a lonely, redundant task which people did not seem to even appreciate. Nothing is worse than an unappreciated artist starving for a change!
    At midday when the sun hid his work, the artist watched from his home the specks of people below. He always cringed at the sight of a girl fight; laughed as young boys ran from angry mothers; cried when once eternal lovers parted. He would have traded all the gems of the night sky for but a day of such joy and misery. For months he dreamt of nothing else until it became a distraction; he began painting the sunrise a deep indigo and dusk a bright magenta-to say nothing of the rainbow which stretched from one end of the earth to the other between one and three each afternoon. Fortunately, their confusion loud and known, he tried concentrating only his duties.
   Yet, he found himself returning to the same beautiful, haunting hope which consumed his mind. Taming his thoughts and wandering detail brush was difficult to accomplish with all the happy faces taunting the single soul dwelling within the heart of the sky. Eventually he ceased even trying. 
    Visiting was not impossible; all he needed to do was lay down his spotted palette. He fought himself for hours, even missing a storm as he paced from one cloud to the next. Finally discarding all his tools, the artist wished and wept with all his power until granted what he desired most. Everything around him was jubilant, no obligations to  meet him while on earth.
    The perfection did not last long. By nightfall, all the world became black; the stars, shielded by graying clouds, no longer offered the silver outline which enabled the nocturnal to continue away from their beds. The man, never before witnessing such darkness, could only pray to the master who had first given him the position of sky painter for another chance.
   The artist had been abandoned until daybreak, finally able to return home once his wails began deafening the sky's keeper. Without hesitation, he finished the sunrise before morning could depart. Content at last, never again has the painter asked to leave his perfection within the sky.