once upon a time, in Meghaloka (the cloud-world where angels live), a castle the colour of strawberry milk floated on a pink cloud, and inside it lived a little angel.
Like Rapunzel in her tower, she could see the whole earth from her window, but angels were forbidden to ever go down there.
So she did what dreamers do. She painted it.
skip the story, meet me →
every day, while the other angels practised their dances, she sat by her window and covered the walls with her wishes.
She wished for:
- a studio where anyone could walk in with a scribble and walk out with a lovely world
- a life between India and Japan, and one spring spent under the cherry blossoms
- a slow little house in the countryside
- to make things that warm people’s hearts
and every night, the earth below sent up lanterns, hundreds and hundreds of them, drifting toward her window like wishes.
She never knew who they were for.
So one night she lit a lantern of her own and let it float up into the dark, her own wish, flickering among all the others.
in Meghaloka, there was only one rule: dance all you like, but never go near the edge of the clouds.
Beyond the edge lay the earth, and no angel who fell there ever came home the same.
She tried to dance in the centre. She really did.
But the music was irresistible. Her feet felt lighter with every turn, her skirt spun out like a flower opening, her bangles rang like tiny bells, and each spin carried her a little closer to the edge. She was far too happy to notice.
and then, in the middle of a spin, the cloud beneath her toes grew thin as breath, until there was no cloud left at all.
down, down, down she fell, past every cloud she had ever known.
There was no net to catch her.
There was only the wind, and two wings that had never been used before.
So she spread them.
splash. She fell into the sea, and the sea caught her softly.
She sank through water that turned from gold to turquoise to deep, glowing blue, past silver fish that scattered like thrown coins, down to the sandy floor where oysters slept with their shells half open.
Every living thing on earth began in water. In a way, she had fallen all the way back to the beginning.
for a moment, she closed her eyes and let the water hold her.
Then she remembered the sky, and kicked, and fought her way up, her wet wings as heavy as blankets, until at last, gasping, she broke the surface.
on the shore, she found a lotus, so beautiful that she tried to carry it back to Meghaloka.
She pulled. It held.
She pulled with all her might, and the lotus did not budge. Ouch! She went tumbling backwards onto the ground.
thud. She landed beside an old chest, and out of it peeked a white, fluffy rabbit.
Inside were silks, bangles and strings of pearls.
Angels cannot resist a heap of lovely things, so she tied the silks into ribbons, strung the pearls into a crown, stacked the bangles into a little tower, and made something beautiful out of what was lying around.
then she noticed him: the rabbit from the chest, sitting very close, watching her as if he knew her.
In Japan, they say a rabbit lives on the moon. Long ago, he offered himself to feed a hungry stranger, who turned out to be a god, and the god lifted him into the moon so the world would always remember his kindness.
Maybe this was that rabbit. Maybe he had come down to look after her, the way kind souls always look after each other, and to guide her through her first day on earth.
and soon, the rabbit’s friends came out of the hills and sat with her around a small fire.
“Some of them look like me,” she thought. “Some look nothing like me. How lovely.”
They shared their food, their stories and their warmth, and for the first time since she fell, she was not afraid.
do you want to hear a secret? Angels never stay forever. They come when someone needs them, and they give everything they have.
She listened to each friend’s biggest dream and helped build it with all her heart, until their dreams grew bigger than their fears.
And one morning, when her friends were strong enough to stand on their own, she hugged each of them goodbye, let a white dove fly out of the window, and flew home to Meghaloka.
before she left, She had seen what no one in Meghaloka ever told her: the elephants had butterfly wings, the boats sailed on moth wings, even the cows looked ready to take off.
People had wings too, folded out of sight like a secret they were keeping from themselves, with no idea how far those wings could take them.
8 
