VALERIE KEALL
Most people wouldn't find any romance in a cloudy, overcast day like this one. They might look to the sky, to the formations swollen with the threat of heavy rain and sigh and prepare their umbrellas and coats. Some would forget their shielding against the elements, finding themselves trapped underneath shelters, hoping for breaks in the downpour. Turn on their headlights and windscreen wipers. Of course, Diana wasn't most people. She lived for days like these. They were beautiful. It was foggy up here. It was going to rain, of that she was certain. She hadn’t spent years learning the science of interpreting the language of the world as a meteorologist to not be confident of that. It would be heavy, too. The kind that caused streets to run with rainwater. The kind that makes crossing the street an ordeal of hopping around puddles and rivulets to avoid having wet shoes. Though, she thinks to herself, a life where wet shoes were the only concern sounded pretty good right about now. Tearing her eyes from the sky to the ground so far below, she wondered if where she landed would be where those puddles or rivulets formed. Carrying her blood down to storm drains. Or maybe they’d collect her body before then. Ah well, she thought. It’s not like it’d matter to her at that point anyway.
Swinging a leg over the railing, she took another look down, tightening her grip on the railing behind her. Diana had tried. She’d really, really tried. When she was a child and that passion, now dead, was first forming, and she’d heard about climate change she’d been reassured. Yes, the planet was under attack by the worst of humanity. Yes, it could die and take all of humanity with it very soon. Yes, the world teetered on the precipice and blameless humans and animals were going to be punished for the actions of the billionaires and their corporations. But it’s okay, she didn’t need to worry. By the time she was an adult, everything would be sorted. Climate change was already on its way out. She was in her thirties now, a somewhat successful meteorologist. She’d spent most of her life studying the weather and its signals and how the planet used it to communicate. The last few years especially she’d been yelling to anyone who’d listen that these ‘freak weather events’ would continue with greater frequency if we didn’t take charge and fight back. Then came the data centres and she yelled louder than ever before. But it didn’t matter. The world, her world was dying. And she wasn’t planning on sticking around to watch its death throes. She stepped out into the air, releasing her grip on the railing.
The thing about falling is that it’s always quicker than you think it should be. Even with how high the roof was, it really shouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds. So when Diana didn’t die immediately after letting go, she opened her eyes curiously. She was floating, carried in the air seemingly by a formation of fog and cloud around her, lifting her up. Diana’s cynical, scientific mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was, in fact, dying and her brain was just creating some fanciful illusion to distract from that. Surely she had already hit the ground below, the last of her synapses firing to create this last experience. It would end any moment now. Then the fog lifted her, gently back to the roof of the building she had decided would be her executioner. The cloud set her down gently on the rooftop. Surely there was some rational explanation for all this. She was a meteorologist, a scientist. Years explaining weather phenomena. She racked her brains for anything, anything at all that could make this make sense and found nothing. Then the cloud, still floating above her, began to shift in shape.
What began as amorphous quickly became something far more recognisable. To say that it was the shape of a woman was not entirely accurate, but not inaccurate either. From the waist down, the shape remained amorphous, where legs would be replaced by a trail of clouds. The torso was of a feminine shape, clouds and fog drawn together in the vague shape of a person. Then there was its’ or her head. The shape of long hair and a face came together and where eyes would be the clouds darkened, little flickers of lightning within resembled the irises of a human. Diana could hardly believe what she was seeing. There was no rational explanation for this, outside of a very bad trip from drugs she hadn’t taken. Then, the cloud woman spoke.
‘Why did you do that?’ It- her voice was mellifluous, as if the wind around Diana was carrying her voice. The being’s head tilted quizzically. Diana snapped out of her dumbfoundedness.
‘What is this? What are you? How is this happening? Am I dying?’
‘You’re not dying, I saved you, remember? As for the rest, you can call me Venti, if you want. The Mother sent me to you. You’ve done good work, she says and she doesn’t want to lose you just yet.’ If a cloud being could smile warmly, she just did.
‘The Mother?’ Diana was reminded of a recent discussion she’d had with a doorknocker trying to recruit her to what he swore wasn’t a cult.
Venti flew around Diana in a spiral. ‘The planet, if you want. We call her The Mother. She sent me to help you. She’s grateful for all the years you’ve spent advocating for her and doesn’t want to lose you.’
Diana’s head was spinning. Just a few minutes ago she had made peace with dying, with not being able to make a difference. Now, according to this being who was most likely not a hallucination, the planet was alive and not in the quasi-metaphorical way people thought it was. It was a living being, like a goddess. And it had servants. One of them was standing- or floating right in front of her. She’d never bothered believing in any god. But maybe this god believed in her. ‘So, the planet, The Mother is some kind of god?’
‘In a sense, I suppose.’
‘Then does that make you an angel?’ Venti gave what closely resembled a non committal shrug.
‘Not quite, but it’s a close enough comparison that if you choose to believe that, I have no issue with it.’ She flew close to Diana again, holding out a hand. Diana regarded this with some skepticism. She looked from the wispy hand to Venti’s face, the clouds moved to resemble a smile, back to the hand then to her face again. ‘The Mother wanted me to show you something, Diana. I won’t force you. If you really do want to die, then I won’t stop you if you try again.’
‘What do you want to show me?’ Diana took Venti’s hand. The cloud woman smiled and she took off, Diana held snugly by a similar bed of fog and clouds next to her. The two of them flew up above the lowest clouds, away from the threat of heavy rain. For a moment, Diana thought that she couldn’t breathe. She shouldn’t be able to breathe well up here. But as she tried to suck in air, it came easily. She turned to Venti, who smiled again.
‘I wasn’t going to suffocate you, Diana. You’ll breathe just fine up here. Now look.’ A wispy finger pointed to the sun, filtered through the thinner mist. It was beautiful. Diana had always loved watching the sunrise and sunset. This was something different. The sky wasn’t bruised with colours as the sun crested the horizon, painting the expanse with pinks and purples and yellows. No, this was the golden rays of the sun in its midday glory, light filtered through thin clouds like threads of gossamer. A gilded sky. Diana had no words, she turned to Venti. ‘Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?’
Diana frowned. ‘Was that a pun? Not-quite angels can make puns?’
Venti giggled, a beautiful sound. ‘Did you expect me to not have a sense of humour?’
Diana fumbled over her words, not sure how to construct an appropriate response to that. Venti, for her part, just moved close to Diana again. ‘There’s more that I want to show you, if you want?’ Diana could only nod.
They flew over distant cities and roads, far from the center of civilisation. As they flew, memories flashed through Diana’s mind. When she was a girl, she had first fallen in love with the language of the skies. She had sat on the porch of her quaint countryside home, and looked up. The position of the home meant they had a clear view of the sunset. As it descended beneath the horizon, the tapestry of colours and warmth that filled the sky felt to Diana like she was witnessing a master painter create their masterpiece. The other memory was far more recent. She had been giving her weather report and broke down. She began ranting at the audience that there was no alternative and so on. She’d lost her job. Didn’t feel much like she had anything else to live for after that.
As they continued flying, Diana saw the world from above, the many faceted wilds beyond the cities. They didn’t stop until they floated high above the countryside, where Diana eventually recognised her childhood home. The rural home hadn’t changed at all in the years since she’d been here, seemingly. Venti took them down slowly, to the expansive green space that felt far too large to be called a backyard, even if that’s what it was. As they landed, Diana closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the sounds of the bush. To birdsong, to creatures shuffling through the leaf cover. Wind through branches and leaves. There was such beauty here, such beauty everywhere for those who wished to see. Not enough wanted to. Not nearly enough. She heard Venti call her name.
‘What’s wrong?’ Diana let out a deep sigh more characteristic of someone far older than she. She’d always been called an old soul.
‘All this, it's dying. We’re losing everything. The planet- The Mother is dying. And I’ve done all I can to fight for her and achieved nothing. This beauty you’ve shown me, you’re just reinforcing my hopelessness in the face of all this. We’re losing the fight to save her. We may have already lost. That’s why I chose to give up, before you saved me. I can’t do this anymore.’
Venti glided closer to Diana. Foggy fingers brushed tears she hadn’t realised she’d shed from Diana’s cheek. ‘The Mother didn’t send me to make you feel hopeless, Diana. She’s hurt, yes. Dying? Maybe. But that’s not what I wanted to show you. This beauty, this world still endures. She will endure the monstrous humans that harm her. She will endure long past they are dead, gone and forgotten. She wanted me to take you here to remind you of the days where you first found that passion. There will be others who will continue the fight for her, and will find that same passion you have. If you truly want to die, to stop fighting, then so be it, I won’t stop you. But there is more to this world than hopelessness. There is still time.
There is still time. There is still time. Death will wait. The future will wait. Diana broke down, falling to her knees. Great sobs wracked her. She was so close. So close to not being able to see the future of a healed planet, a true symbiosis between human and planet. As she sobbed, Venti’s clouds swirled around her again, and in a moment she found herself at that rooftop again. Venti’s lips, if they could be called that, pressed against Diana’s forehead for the briefest of moments. She opened her eyes to look at the cloud being, her saviour. Venti simply smiled at her and dissipated to the winds. Perhaps they would meet again, perhaps not. Regardless, Diana wiped her tears and stood up. She moved to the stairs, taking a far slower route to the ground floor this time. As she reached the door, she stopped and looked to the sky. The overcast clouds had split, the sun shining through them again. For a moment, Diana thought she saw the shape of a woman in the clouds, but she blinked and it was gone. There was still time. The clouds would still form, they would still travel across the sky, bringing healing rain and comforting shade. The planet would heal, in time. And Diana had every desire to see that day. After all, the sun always shines through the clouds eventually.
VALERIE KEALL
Valerie Keall is studying a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. She loves all forms of human storytelling and creativity, from gaming to reading to film, with a particular interest in the expansive potential of the fantasy genre. She also loves cats.
