Storytelling: The Man Above The Clouds

There was once a terrible, horrible monster that lived above the clouds and would periodically come down and snatch up unassuming victims for a light snack. All the people of the town were terrified of him, the man above the clouds, and they would stay inside for weeks at a time to ensure that they didn't fall victim to him.

Finally, a young girl became sick of this predicament. She knew that she could be the hero that saved the town! So, she gathered a group of people and went to go confront the man in the clouds.

"Hey, you!" she shouted to the man in the clouds. He peeked his eye out of the sky. "Who, me?" he asked. "Yeah, you! If you eat one more person, that will be the end of you! We will come up there and defeat you once and for all!" The town was silent. "Uh, you don't want to do that" he finally replied. "You don't know what happened last time".

The young girl stood her ground. "I mean it!" she said. "Not one mo-" before she could even finish her sentence, the man above the clouds reached down and plucked up an old man off of his farm and finished him in one crunch.

The young girl and her warriors climbed the trees and began poking at him with their swords, but to no avail, he was much too high above the clouds. "Fine" he said. "I'll stop eating people. I'll only eat off the land. You'll see."

They were elated! They had beaten the man in the clouds with no further casualties. For the next few weeks, there were people partying in the streets, as they felt safe for the first time in years. Then, the young girl noticed something.

They were running low on food. And water. And places to put homes. Almost every resource in the town was running on reserve. She fell ill during the weeks after the man in the cloud had been defeated, but there was no medicine left for her to take. The town was soon ravaged with a plague- people were up all night to the screams of their neighbors in agony. Grocery stores closed. Farms dried up. Livestock died.

She finally realized the purpose of the man above the clouds- the town couldn't provide for all these people and their exponential population growth. The man in the clouds was there to take the weak town members, and to keep the town and the town's resources in check.

So, she climbed the tree and told the man above the clouds that she was wrong, and that the town needed him if they were to survive. She begged and begged until the man above the clouds peeked out and whispered, "I told you so".

So, the town learned a lesson about sustainability. They accepted that at anytime, the man above the clouds could decide that it was their time to go- but until then, they kept partying in the streets.

The Man Above the Clouds.

(source)

Author's Note:
I was inspired to write this story based on the Cyclops in Homer's Odyssey. The dark aspect of a giant eating people and the people being relatively defenseless against him really caught my curiosity. From this character, I pulled some ideas from my biology classes about population sustainability.

Bibliography:
From Homer's Odyssey, on the chapter "The Cyclops Defeated". Source here.