Sea of Clouds

I thought i knew what was missing in the picture that morning at Kalonbarak, Malungon.
A knocking on the door woke me up. I grabbed my phone just in time for it to ring the alarm i had set the night before. 5am. I still felt cozy with just a green hoodie jacket and the pants i wore the whole day yesterday and was too tired to take it off when we arrived at the cabin a little over midnight. I tried to look for signs of the breaking dawn but i couldn't make out any from my lying down position. Pulling myself up, i looked for a slit on the window and saw orange on a blue sky.
"Wake up guys!" I told my friends who were still snuggling on warm blankets and sleeping bags.
I made my way out of the room at the same time the girl who's knocking woke me up step out of the comfort room. Our eyes met. I guess I cared less that I haven't washed up my face. Who knows what solid material was lodged on the sides of my eyelids that morning. I looked away as I walked past her and out of the cabin. I was there for the sea of clouds.
A lot of campers who had lined their tents by the cliff were up and about taking selfies. I took out my phone and took my shots. The sun was then breaking at the horizon.
The constant chatting and laughing of the campers brought me to a short walking distance where it turned into murmurs and the sound of the morning crickets reached my ears. The sea of clouds were far from where we were but it left me breathless. It looked like a white long hair of a maiden leaving the ridge to hide on the other side.
"Her white hair trailed off, vanishing away to the far side, away from the peeping sun, bidding her farewell. Tomorrow, she might come again, all in white." - captioned on a video i posted in IG.
Beautiful. I said it to myself. My hands hidden inside the front pocket of my green hoodie, keeping it warm. I happened to walk past a couple sitting on a wooden swing. Both of them were in red. Their bodies close to each other. In silence they sat and watched the new day coming to life. There was a language that i bet only the two of them understood. Something that I knew I can speak too but at that moment would remain unreciprocated.
I looked around and then I begun to see couples holding each other's hands. I wondered if the warmth they felt were the same as the warmth I had with my two hands holding each other inside my pocket. They took selfies with heads close together; The girl making wacky faces and the guy looking for that perfect angle.
Everywhere I looked I saw them. If it were not on two people making their way through the line of pine trees, I saw it on a different pair over the row of blooming flowers, all smiles and sweetness. I saw it on a couple taking turns to take photos with the majestic Mt. Matutum in the background.
The day continued. Campers packed up while groups of friends and more of those couples kept on coming in. There i stood solitary by the cliff, waiting. A cup of slightly bitter native coffee in my hand. It had cooled off before I drank it up. Then it crossed my mind. The sea of clouds. Distant. Away from the tips of my fingers.
As I walked back towards the cabin, I thought of a different line for that IG post,"...tomorrow she might come again, all white but hopefully, just hopefully close enough for my hands to touch."
