He had traveled far to the south of the land he knew when he found his brother, Mouse, who was traveling north but not really meaning to. They were brothers but were never friendly. Mouse saw only what was in front of his nose. He moved from one thought to another depending on his mood of the moment, wanting everything he saw and never seeing anything he wanted. He was known to run around in circles and got lost quite easily, which is how he was found traveling north without meaning to.

If Cloud hadn’t seen the signs of an approaching storm and decided that the chance of two brothers together surviving angry weather was greater than two apart he would have avoided his brother and not said, "Mouse, you and I will gather supplies, shelter ourselves in a cave until the storm calms." If Mouse hadn’t been so pleased to have company, (since he’d been lost for days), he wouldn’t have agreed.

The storm between the brothers in the shelter cave was almost as great as the storm outside. Cloud, failing in a sensible approach to change his brother to be more serious and thoughtful became louder and louder. Mouse, quite defenseless in arguments and much more interested in getting out of the cave, screamed in frustration, "Leave me alone! Leave me alone!" 

The rains loosened the ground and allowed large boulders to slide in front of the cave blocking the entrance.

Being trapped, there was nothing for the brothers to look at but each other when they were awake and themselves when they were asleep. They were trapped with their worst fear: The opposite of what each of them were. Trapped with their opposites to mock and ridicule everything each believed was truly important.

Cloud’s judgments and right answers were useless against Mouse’s screams and scatterings. Mouse’s poundings on the boulder that blocked the entrance and beggings to let him out were useless against the reality of the situation and against the cold disapproving stares of Cloud. Soon the only activity the brothers shared was ridiculing each other.

Mouse showed Cloud how the people would run from Cloud afraid they would be stopped and forced to take his wise advice. Cloud appreciated how well his brother could impersonate others and began to laugh. Even when Mouse put on Cloud’s stern, sanctimonious, unsmiling expression, Cloud laughed. Then Cloud entertained Mouse by pantomiming a man chasing after butterflies and running into the trees he didn’t see. The brothers became quiet, looked at each other and saw themselves through the other’s eyes and laughed again.

Exhausted they lay back and noticed light coming from the back of the cave. They looked toward the light, then at each other and thought of the many days they sat in the cave getting angrier and angrier at each other, the storm, the boulder that blocked the entrance - and they laughed. They thought of the many days after the storm was over that their anger kept them focused on each other and they never noticed they were not trapped in the cave at all - and they laughed.

Cloud, Mouse and Humor stood and together they walked out of the back of the cave and into the Spring air.