Letter from Earth to the Student in the Sky

Dear Manny,

I hope you are enjoying your time in the clouds. I received your postcard, but I suppose the moisture in the air must have been quite heavy on the day you mailed it because all the ink ran together and I couldn't read a word you wrote!

Luckily, I saw that it was postmarked 'The Clouds' so I knew it had to be from you. I hope you were writing to tell me that going to Cloud College is everything you had hoped it would be. Too bad there's no wifi up there yet.

What are your dorms like? Are all of the structures made of clouds, or do they build houses on cloud foundations? Do you make a lot of 'silver lining' jokes up there? Can you see the Great Wall?

What do you eat on a cloud? I assume you don't EAT the clouds, but I also can't imagine it'd be very easy to grow crops or keep animals on a cloud. If I had to guess what you're eating, I'd have to say astronaut food. I know that in deep space, the human tastebud is dulled so they have to make space food extra flavorful- are your tastebuds dulled on the cloud? I hope so, only because it would suck if you had to eat NASA's strong cooking without the weakened tastebuds.

I have a lot of questions! Sorry if they're stupid but I've never lived anywhere but on the ground.

I'm enclosing a little envelope filled with dirt for you. You may recognize the type of envelope- it's the red and gold kind that we bought together in Chinatown. I hope you enjoy the dirt! It's from a potted plant I purchased at Ikea.

Write back soon! And make sure to laminate it!

-Val