Listen or read along. “Iris the Cloud Listener” is a free
original sleep story for ages 0–3, narrated aloud in about 0 minutes.
The full text is below, and the SleepOmo app reads it to your child with a
calm voice, a dimming screen and a gentle sleep timer.
In a cozy little cottage at the edge of the meadow, there lived a boy named Quilla who loved to watch the sky. Every evening, when the sun grew soft and golden, he would climb the gentle slope behind his home and sit very still. He would look up at the clouds drifting slowly across the blue, and he wondered what they were thinking about as they floated so high and far away.
One evening, Quilla noticed something he had never seen before. A small cloud, no bigger than his hand, was shimmering with the softest silver light. It moved differently from the other clouds, drifting lower and lower until it hovered just above the meadow grass. Quilla's heart grew curious and warm.
"Hello there," he whispered to the cloud.
The cloud began to glow a little brighter.
"I am Iris," a gentle voice said, like wind chiming through bells. "I have been listening to the sky all day long, and I heard someone down below who was wondering about us. That was you, wasn't it?"
Quilla nodded, though he could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"I love when people wonder," Iris said softly. "It makes the sky feel less lonely."
Quilla sat down right there in the grass, and Iris settled lower, close enough that he could almost feel the cool, gentle mist of her. She smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet, and like the morning after a storm.
"What do the clouds think about?" Quilla asked in his smallest voice.
Iris drifted in a slow circle above him.
"We think about many things," she said. "We think about the mountains we pass over. We think about the children looking up at us from down below. We think about the colours we will wear when the sun begins to set."
As if the sky itself had heard her words, the light began to change. The sun sank lower and lower. Soft pink and peach began to paint the edges of the clouds around them. Then came orange, like a gentle fire. Then purple, deep and dreaming.
"Look, Quilla," Iris whispered. "Look what's happening now."
And Quilla saw it. A rainbow was forming at the very edge of the meadow, so faint and so soft that it looked like it was made of starlight instead of light. It curved gently over the grass where he was sitting.
"I have been listening to the sky," Iris said, "and I heard the rainbow calling to say goodnight."
Quilla watched the rainbow fade slowly, slowly, until it was barely there at all. The colours didn't disappear — they just grew quieter and quieter, like a lullaby at the end of a song.
"Are you sad when the day ends?" Quilla asked.
"No," Iris said very gently. "I have been listening to the sky, and I know a secret. Every ending is a beginning too. When this day is done, the stars will come out. The moon will rise. And tomorrow, the sun will come back and paint us all with colour again."
Quilla felt something warm and sleepy beginning to settle in his chest.
"Will you stay with me?" he asked.
"I will stay as long as the evening lasts," Iris promised. "But even when I drift away to other skies, you can always find me by looking up and wondering. Every cloud you see is listening to someone's wonder. Every one."
They sat together in the growing darkness. The stars began to appear, one by one, like tiny lights being lit in the deepest blue. The air grew cool and soft. A gentle breeze carried the smell of grass and earth and sleep.
Quilla's eyes grew heavier and heavier as he watched the sky turn from purple to deep indigo to the colour of dreams.
"Thank you for listening," Iris whispered. "For wondering about us. It makes us feel loved."
"I will always wonder about you," Quilla said, his voice already drifting like a cloud itself.
"I know," Iris said. "And I will always be listening."
The sky grew darker still. The stars shone brighter. Quilla could feel the grass beneath him, soft and cool. He could feel the night air on his skin, gentle as a blanket. His breathing slowed. His eyes closed.
Somewhere high above, Iris drifted on through the darkness, carrying Quilla's wondering with her. And down below, in the meadow behind his cottage, Quilla slept. His dreams were full of soft colours and clouds that whispered kind things. He slept warm and safe and loved, knowing that the sky was always there, always listening, always full of gentle magic waiting to be wondered at.
The stars watched over him. The moon rose higher. And in the morning, when Quilla woke, he would look out his window and see the clouds gathering once more, and he would smile, knowing that somewhere among them, Iris was still listening.
Listen to it free in the app
SleepOmo narrates every story aloud, dims the screen, and fades out with a
gentle sleep timer. A brand-new story is added free every night.
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