You close your eyes and breathe deeply, feeling your lungs expand. \n\nYou bend your knees, place your feet flat on the ground. The grass tickles your toes, and your low back flattens out. You think of the earth supporting you. \n\nOpening your eyes, you notice a few [[white, puffy clouds|The Clouds]].

You flew a plane once. All by yourself. You left the earth, circled around the airport, and returned unscathed. They were even able to use the plane again. \n\nAll the studying, the hours spent with the instructor, they had paid off. \n\nBut then things came up. Life happened. You couldn't keep working on the license. Couldn't afford to rent the plane time or pay the instructor anymore. \n\nPerhaps one day you'll take it back up again. [[Perhaps...|Dream of Flight]]

Yeah, more of a dog. It's lying down, that's all. That's what made it look like an alligator there for a second. But the snout is too short.\n\nThe more that you look at it, the more you're reminded of Layla, the corgie your family had when you were little. A smile touches your lips as you recall the Easter Sunday when she found every single hidden egg in the house while you were away at church. When you and your mother got home, she greeted you at the door: happy to see you, tail wagging, strings of chewing gum wound completely around her head. <i>Maybe they won't notice,</i> she was probably thinking. \n\nIf dogs think like that.\n\nNow that you think of it, the cloud doesn't look much like a dog anymore. Now it looks more like [[a turtle|Tenny]] or [[a car|The Bug]].

You are lying on the [[grass|The Grass]], your view framed with [[trees|The Trees]], a bit of [[open sky|The Sky]] above you, the warmth of the [[sun|The Sun]] on your skin.

Yes, round and compact, like that old '78 Beetle your parents used to own. \n\nYou used to love riding in that thing with the top down, even though the black vinyl seats soaked up sun and became so hot you couldn't sit on them in shorts. You always wore shorts. You burned your legs several times before finally having the bright idea to put a towel down on the seat. Then the heat of the seats was reduced from scorching to [[soothing|Dream of Napping]].

Bright white in sharp relief on the otherwise clear blue, the clouds float slowly by. Each is unique. \n\nYou know they're just a random collection of water vapor, but their shapes spark your imagination... \n\n...that one, right there, looks like [[an alligator|Okefenokee]]. Or possibly it's [[just a dog|Layla]].

Bright, rising, not yet overhead. Warm on your skin, pleasant, but not <i>too</i> warm.\n\n[[Relax|Relaxing in the Grass]]

You close your eyes and feel the sun on your face. Your mind wanders back to old road trips, riding shotgun with your mother, oldies playing on the Bug's ancient 8-track, that pleasantly warm seat reclined just enough to encourage napping as the wind whipped through your hair.\n\n\n[[Thank you.|Thank you]]

You run your hands over the grass, first brushing the tops of the blades with your palms, then pushing deeper. Closer to the ground, the grass is thick and still slightly damp with last night's dew.\n\n[[Relax|Relaxing in the Grass]]

You drift off to sleep in the warm sun, and dream of being free. Flying through the sky, the plane an extension of your mind and body, responding to your every touch.\n\n\n\n[[Thank you.|Thank you]]

Cloud Dreaming

No, not so much a turtle as a tortoise. A lot people use the words interchangeably, but you know the difference. \n\nYou had a tortoise once, though now as an adult you think that keeping her was probably the wrong thing to do. Her name was Tenny, short for Tennessee. You'd 'rescued' her — she was crossing a busy highway, begging to be smooshed. And so you convinced your mother to pull the car over and let you 'save' her. \n\nBut the rest of her life was spent in a big cardboard box. You'd brought her lovely fruit and veggies, and sometimes let her out to crawl slowly across the yard, but she never saw her home again.\n\nYou can't help but think that if she'd made it across that highway safely without your help that she would have lived a longer, more free life. And probably populated the world with [[more lovely box turtles...|Dream of the Forest]]

Thank you for exploring these daydreams, inspired by my own past.\n\n<i>Cloud Dreaming</i> was written as an introduction to Twine and choice-based story telling for new authors. It is also available as an introduction to Inform 7 and parser-based story telling at http://allthingsjacq.com/games/cd/\n\nMy sincere thanks to Sam Kabo Ashwell, Katherine Morayati, and Zach Samuels for testing, though any errors or inelegancies of code are my own. Thanks also to Graham Nelson, Emily Short, Chris Klimas, and Anna Anthropy.\n\nBoth games were created for a presentation entitled <i>If You Can Write, You Can Make Computer Games</i>, which has been presented at <a href="http://geekgirlcon.com">GeekGirlCon.com</a> and for <a href="https://honolulu.nerdnite.com/">Nerd Nite Honolulu</a>.\n\nYou can download Twine at http://twinery.org/ and the structure of this example at http://allthingsjacq.com/games/cd/cloud-dreaming.tws \n\nYou can contact the author via gmail at jacqueline.a.lott\n

The [[open sky|The Sky]] above you is framed on multiple sides by [[autumn foliage|Autumn Leaves]].\n\n[[Relax|Relaxing in the Grass]]

Red and burnt orange, each tinged with bright yellow. They sway gently in the wind.\n\n[[Relax|Relaxing in the Grass]].

Yes, just like an alligator. \n\nYou rather like them. Most people are scared of alligators — and possibly you should possess a healthier fear of them — but you spent a pleasant weekend paddling a canoe around in Okefenokee Swamp once, and there were alligators everywhere. They hung out on logs or lazily paddled along, their powerful tails gently moving side to side. They never gave you a second look. \n\n... but wait, no. The cloud's no longer an alligator. Now it's more of [[an airplane|Flying]], or possibly [[the space shuttle|Beyond Earth]].

Azure blue. Mostly clear. There are a few [[white, puffy clouds|The Clouds]] here and there.

You turn your head to the side and lazily glance at the grass. Lush, vivid green. A world unto itself, were you an insect.\n\nYou could [[run your hands through it|Touch the Grass]] or just [[ignore it|Relaxing in the Grass]].

Elementary school. You remember how your fourth grade science teacher had applied to go aboard the Space Shuttle, and how you and others in your class had been saddened by the Challenger disaster, yet thankful that Mrs. Quickstad hadn't been chosen to be on that mission. That could have been her.\n\nAnd somehow you knew things would get better for the space program. They <i>had</i> to. That's why you were going to go into the Air Force and then become an astronaut. \n\nUnfortunately, someone you respected — an Air Force pilot, no less — told you to forget that dream. "You're a girl, there are few roles for you, your career would be over by the time you were thirty. You need something longer lasting."\n\nAnd damn it, you listened to that advice.\n\nYour life has turned out wonderfully anyway, but sometimes you think of what it would have been like to [[touch the stars|Dream of Stars]].

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You drift off to sleep in the warm sun, and dream of being far away. First the moon, then Mars.\n\n\n\n[[Thank you.|Thank you]]

Jacqueline A. Lott

You drift off to sleep in the warm sun, and dream of being a child again, exploring the woods of Appalachia. Crawling over logs and up steep hills, one ridge to the next. \n\nYou see a turtle crawling through dry, brown leaves, and this time you let it be.\n\n\n\n[[Thank you.|Thank you]]