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The Cloud

Laureen Pearce

By Laureen PearcePublished 3 years ago 10 min read
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Photo: icon0.com from Pexels

The sun is baking hot. Millions of microscopic water droplets rise up from the surface of the ocean, gradually forming a cloud.

The cloud becomes aware, as if waking up. There are no thoughts, only awareness. Cloud just is. He delights in his surroundings: the blue of the sky above him and the deeper blue of the shifting sea below him. For some time he just drifts lazily. There is no sense of time, only of being.

The wind tickles Cloud. His shape changes. He observes this with fascination. The wind plays with Cloud, changing his shape and form.

The wind suddenly gusts harder and Cloud breaks up. His consciousness ceases, as if asleep.

Cloud reawakens. This time he’s not alone. There are others like him nearby. The wind gently pushes him closer to them. Cloud is delighted.

He merges with the other clouds, becoming one with them, their consciousness joining with his. The wind plays with them, pulling and pushing them and changing their shapes.

More clouds merge with Cloud and he grows in size, strength and awareness. He is aware of the sun shining brightly above him but notices how the sea below him has turned dark grey.

The wind is pushing him along quite fast now. Ahead he notices a patch of black and brown and green in the sea. It’s a small stretch of land, an island rising out of the sea like a fortress. The sea crashes with white rage against it but it stands fast, immovable.

As Cloud is pushes closer by the sea wind, hot air from the land pushes back against him. He feels himself becoming denser, heavier as he rises higher over the land.

The wind blows harder, churning up the sea below Cloud. The sea turns dark and violently attacks the black rocks below. As Cloud is pummelled by the winds, the water droplets with him grow larger and larger. Cloud feels very heavy. He sees how dark it has become below him.

A sizzling energy building up within him. Then suddenly, a thunderous clap of lightning explodes from him. It happens again, his whole being illuminated by the flashes. He feels invincible. Nothing can stop him now!

He unleashes a torrent of rain on the land, soaking it, drenching it. The wind blows the rain sideways. The trees below flap their leafy arms wildly in the wind. Some lose their branches which fly through the air before smacking against a rock or another tree. There is debris everywhere.

Cloud exalts in his new found power. He bristles with electric energy. He thunders with every lightning strike. He vents his burden of rain on the land. Take that you defiant fortress!

When Cloud reaches the other side of the island, the storm quickly abates. He feels spent, lighter and smaller than before. The rain ceases, the wind dies down and the lightning within him grows still. Cloud breaks apart, letting the sun shine patchily on the still turbulent ocean below.

Cloud watches his friends take their leave, some dissipating into nothing, others floating off into the distance. He is alone again, the deep blue ocean below him and the open sky open above him. Cloud drifts apart into nothing, his consciousness ceasing once more.

Cloud emerges from the air again. It’s colder than before. There’s an enormous cloud bank ahead of him. He’s amazed. It stretches across the entire horizon as one body, sitting low over the ocean and reaching high into the sky above.

As he approaches the bank Cloud notices two small oblong objects moving towards each other on the water, small white plumes of vapour emanating from their middles. Cloud watches, curious, as they slowly pass each other and continue with their journey.

Just then he joins the cloud bank and immediately taps into a vast collective consciousness, becoming one with it. Now he is the entire cloud mass. The Collective informs him that the objects below are ships, a human mode of transport. He learns that these ships are flimsy, even though they appear solid, that they break up in storms and are easily swallowed by the ocean.

As Cloud ponders the ships a small white and grey creature startles him, flapping and squawking as it flies through him. A seagull. Cloud observes this strange creature with curiosity. It flaps its wings, rising high into the sky, unfazed by Cloud’s amorphous presence. It then glides on the wind, gradually descending. More birds appear, some alone, others in chaotic flocks, calling noisily to one another. Cloud watches several seagulls noisily follow a small ship below him, a fishing vessel.

Just then, another strange, oblong object with rigid wings flies through him with a loud roar. He learns that it is an aeroplane, another of the human modes of transport.

There is land ahead, stretching before him to the horizon and beyond. Far below him, he makes out large patches of green and yellow: fields, some with tiny white, black and brown blobs moving around on them. Sheep, cattle and horses, land creatures, the Collective informs him.

And trees: some solitary, many clumped together into woods or forests. Shiny ribbons of water wind their way between them, sometimes spilling into small seas. Rivers and lakes. Flocks of birds in many colours fly all over, calling and singing. Some float on the lakes.

Cloud sees a network of dark grey lines cutting through the landscape, with small colourful objects moving along them. Roads with cars and trucks. The roads connected groups of strange boxes stacked closely together and on top of one another. Towns and villages. And then he sees them, the humans. Small multi-coloured creatures walking upright on two legs. Humans. The creatures who liked to travel in strange noisy vehicles and live in odd boxes. Who seemed to be everywhere!

Cloud can now no longer see the ocean. He has moved far inland. His size matches the land below him, his shadow casting a pallid grey over the land. He has descended closer to the land and can see more details. Rain gently falls from him.

Ahead lies a city with very tall buildings at its centre. He passes over an airport and sees where the aeroplanes come from. There are so many! Some are on the ground, some are taking off or landing with a roar, and others flying around the city.

Cloud continues to rain on the city as he slowly passes over it. There are so many humans everywhere scurrying back and forth, some on foot under umbrellas, others in their noisy little vehicles. He hears a great cacophony of sounds: loud honking, wailing sirens, rumbling vehicles. Another strange object flies by making a thunderous, chopping sound. It has a bulbous body with a rigid tail. A human sits inside it. On the top and at the end of its tail are two spinning disks. A helicopter. But how can it fly without wings?

After some time Cloud sees the ocean once again. There’s another city nestled between the land and the sea. He notices several ships lined up next to the city, floating beside large platforms with huge mechanical frames moving up and down next to them, loading large boxes onto or off of them. Further on, humans are spilling off of a large white ship of a different design.

Other ships are entering and leaving the semi-enclosed body of water at the edge of the city. The harbour. So this is where the ships come from!

Cloud is fascinated by these tiny humans. They are everywhere. Like him they move into and out of one another and also appear to share some sort of collective consciousness. But they are different in so many ways that perplexes him. They are as alien to him as he must be to them.

Cloud glides over the ocean again, a vast, ponderous mass. The sea here is rough and dark grey. The air feels colder now.

Before long, Cloud sees land again. The land below him is different to the last one. Tall black mountains rise up out of the ocean, creating a jagged coastline. Tall pointy trees cover the lower slopes of the mountains, while colourful buildings nestle at the foot. But what is that cold white stuff covering the tops of the mountains?

Cloud notices a change within him. The air temperature drops. His vaporous consistency begins to freeze. As he glides over the white-tipped mountains, he feels very strange. Then it happens: instead of rain, fluffy white flakes begin to fall silently from him. Cloud is amazed, watching the strange stuff floating down. Snow, the Collective informs him. This is snow!

As Cloud skims the tops of the peaks he spots a few mountain goats perched precariously on the steep sides. They bleat loudly at one another. Further down the slope snow decorates the pointy pine trees and covers the ground. A wolf picks his way through the thick snow, leaving a dark trail behind him.

As Cloud drifts on, the wind blows harder and harder. The light fades and darkness descends. It becomes even colder. The wind quickly turns Cloud’s gentle snowfall into a ferocious blizzard, whistling and screaming and blowing the snow sideways. Dawn breaks, but the wind is relentless. In spite of the light, Cloud still can’t see anything. Everything is white and grey with no form. The wind continues to rip the snow from him, driving it forward.

The blizzard rages for three days. In the early hours of fourth day, the wind subsides. Cloud feels spent, empty and no longer as big. Parts of him break away, forming separate clouds which still travel with him. As the sun rises, it illuminates a pristine wonderland. The whole land as far as he can see is covered by thick snow. It’s so beautiful!

A few deer venture out from under the snow-laden trees. Their dainty feet immediately sink down into the snow up to their bellies. They jump and leap to make progress, leaving a trail of deep, narrow gullies behind them.

Over the next mountain ridge, Cloud spots a human town. A large snow plough is slowing pushing the snow from the blocked roads. A few humans are buzzing across the snow, riding atop small fast noisy machines: snowmobiles.

On the other side of the town is a vast dark flat space criss-crossed with ragged white lines: a frozen lake. On the town side of the lake humans are walking and gliding on the ice. Three humans are congregated around a hole in the ice, pulling out small flip-flopping fish. On the far side, a herd of deer are looking for water to drink while a pack of hungry wolves stalks them silently nearby.

As Cloud drifts on he ascends higher and higher until he can no longer make out small details on the frozen land below him. He is breaking apart, transforming into long icy wisps. The sun dips lower towards the horizon. Cloud can no longer feel its warm.

Darkness descends and stars prick the black sky with sparkling light. The night sky seems vast, endless and Cloud wonders what it’s like out there. A movement catches his attention. The sky ahead of him, all around him, begins to pulsate with luminous shimmering ribbons of strange green light. Cloud at first wonders if it is a different kind of cloud, but it doesn’t behave like one. He observes this wondrous phenomenon with amazement. The light changes to yellow, then red and pink, and back to green. As he’s no longer part of the Collective, he doesn’t know what to make of this. He will ask when he next meets the Gathering. For now he just watches this beautiful spectacle with wonder, as he gradually drifts into nothing.

The sun is baking hot. Millions of tiny water droplets rise up from the surface of the ocean. gradually coalescing into a cloud…

Fantasy
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About the Creator

Laureen Pearce

I love reading. Whether science fiction, fantasy, action adventre, or horse stories, I love a great story and I have a few of my own. It's time to start writing them down.

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