Somewhere way above cloud nine, the high and mighty looked down upon him, laughing, pointing and heckling him as he carried his bucket across the darkened skies below. “Go on, try and paint that one buddy. Good luck! That one’s near impossible,” they roared, keeling over fluttering their wings.

Trying to ignore their patronising taunts, he repeated over and over, “Every cloud has a silver lining. Every cloud has a silver lining.” With persistence and determination he went about his business, painting silver lines around each cloud. “Boy, there are a lot of dark clouds hanging over peoples’ heads these days,” he quietly whispered as he splashed a dash of brilliant silver on each cloud that appeared in the sky.

Over the years he had brightened every cloud imaginable, always trying to add something positive or providing a glimmer of hope to someone’s life by days end. Money worry clouds, health and peace clouds always kept him busy among lining the relationship, loneliness and guilt ridden clouds. With every dip of the brush and each carefully placed stroke he whispered his favourite words, “Love, light and happiness,” hoping each cloud would dazzle, shine its silver lining then quickly drift away from the worrisome lives below.

With the world economic turndown, global warming concerns and recent spat of earthquakes, clouds were popping up everywhere! He continued working long hours and soon discovered the bucket was drying up and had little paint left to spare. He went off in search of a colourful rainbow eventually spotting a distant rainbow that was forming in the sky above a place called ‘Splendiferous’ – which was indeed an acronym for ‘Smiling People Living Endlessly Never Defining Ideology For Everything Rival Of Universal Serenity’.

He agreed it was easier to simply call it ‘Splendiferous’. And splendiferous it certainly was. The sky was full of brilliant hues of light. Flashes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet danced around his body, lifting his wings and twirling him through the radiant sky. With his heart of song and soul of blest, he was filled with omnipotent beams of dazzling light. Feeling every part of splendiferous himself, he hadn’t a care in the world. The dark cloud hanging above his head simply vanished. He was there, in the now and his now was simply splendiferous.

The light carried him to the lake of swimming thought. With every thought of uncertainty he splashed about, came a wave of clarity crashing back. He desperately needed to understand the meaning of ‘Splendiferous’ and how he could share it with thousands of people upon return. He was somewhere, floating in a place called ‘Splendiferous’, full of light, the place where rainbows form and begin their journey up to the sky.

He arrived home and immediately took his brush and painted a brilliant rainbow in the sky for the world to see. He looked down and saw a world of love, light and happiness, a place of ‘Smiling People Living Endlessly Never Defining Ideology For Everything Rival Of Universal Serenity’. For everyone below, they simply caught a glimpse of a splendiferous rainbow.

THE BEGINNING…

Thank you to the 3008 Docklands Magazine and the people of Docklands for Ratastic Times. Chew on that!