One of the fascinating things about imagining the world through the ‘eyes’ of a cloud, something I am obliged to do as I write The Cloud Catcher, is how startlingly different and alien that perspective appears to us humans and how incomprehensible we must seem to a cloud. Here are a couple of examples taken from the first chapters of the manuscript.
Rain: a cloud let’s go
Fran felt the moment the cloud let go and released its rain. It was an odd sensation, rather like wetting yourself, but without the shame. First there were a thousand timid trickles that quickly transformed into a deluge nothing could stop. (…)
No limits to self
She halted the pony and, sitting still in the saddle, closed her eyes and concentrated on the cloud and its contortions. It had caught an updraft and was joyfully soaring skywards in search of other clouds. Fran got a shock when it flowed in and through others, as if her being was dissolving, as if she had no limits, that all clouds were in her and she in them. (…)
Borne on a breath
Like the caress of a cloud, a gentle breeze rippled through her in response to Jakob’s voice. Not so much his voice, as the breath it rode on. It would be so easy to get lost in that breath. It called to her. (…)
Beyond boundaries
[The cloud’s] breath swirled inside and outside her, making nonsense of the notion of skin, of boundaries, of individuality, she felt the immensity of clouds, their inhuman strength and their alarming fragility. She was a part of it, no, she was that immensity, aware that it filled her with undeniable life. (…)
Clouds and death
“[The cloud] reacted instinctively to protect me, not understanding the transitory nature of life. For clouds it’s different. They flow in and out of each other, losing themselves in the mass then reappearing. Most of them have no identity of their own. So they have a very limited understanding of death.” (…)
If you like what you’ve read, you’ll have to wait a while till I’ve finished writing the novel, but you can find out more by periodically visiting: the-cloud-catcher.com.