Clouds

 One night, a man stood in his garden, staring up at the sky in frustration. The moon, which had been full and bright the evening before, was now hidden behind thick, shifting clouds. He frowned, as if the sky had personally betrayed him.  

"It should be clear tonight," he muttered to himself. "The forecast said so. This isn’t right." 

His irritation grew as the clouds stubbornly lingered. He checked his phone again, comparing the radar to the obscured sky, as if reality had an obligation to match his expectations. The more he resisted, the more agitated he became.  

Then, without warning, a gust of wind parted the clouds, just for a moment, and the moon shone through, luminous and untouched. It had been there all along, indifferent to his judgments. The clouds were neither wrong nor right; they simply were. And the moon did not need his permission nor approval to exist.  

In that fleeting clarity, he laughed at himself. His frustration had not changed the sky, only his own peace. The ego had insisted on how things should be, but reality unfolded as it would. The moon, like the true self, did not require his acknowledgment to be whole.  

He took a deep breath and let go. The clouds returned, but it no longer mattered. Somewhere beyond them, the moon was still shining. And so, he realized, was he.