Cloudy Escape

by Igor Zenin

A column of cloud pours straight down out of a sunset sky and disappears into a street drain, cobblestones catching the last orange light while a horse-drawn carriage waits, small and silhouetted, in the distance. It reads like a genie going back into the wrong bottle — something enormous folding itself into something built for rainwater. The title undersells it. This isn't weather. It's an exit.