Sunlight forced its way angrily through the dark curtains which had been
closed hastily the night before, leaving patches of window in her view. The curtains
did not do much to stop the sun from reaching into her bedroom and grasping a
hold of everything in it, throwing it all into view, plunging her into reality.
She was disappointed by
this unceremonious launch into the real world, disappointed to learn that
everything still existed, that the people and places and things that had
disappeared last night had truly come back. She looked above her and her
greatest fear was confirmed. Her cloud had come back too.
Her cloud spent a vast
amount of time following her where she went, falling about her like a heavy
blanket that she could not shake off. It was not put off by physical barriers,
without consent, settled itself into her head and chest, suffocating her. To
her complete frustration and emabarrassment, very few others could see her
cloud. This was curious because it was so tightly bound around her, and so constricting,
she was surprised that she was not being rushed to the hospital to have her
cloud pryed off and out of her.
Her cloud had settled
itself comfortably inside and on top of her, pinning her to her bed. She could
not lift her arms or her legs, it sat so heavily upon her. It seeped into her
muscles and her brain, filling her with its misty being that was somehow as
heavy as lead. In an effort that felt nothing short of herculaen, she heaved
herself upright. Her cloud fell into her stomach and filled it with cement,
before falling into her feet, planting her to the ground. The cloud had wrapped
itself around her legs like weights, turning her walk into a shuffle.
To her utter
frustration, the cloud, which was so present today, was behaving rather modestly,
deciding not to show itself. This was utterly inexplicaple because she could
see the cloud everywhere she looked. She could see it expanding to fill each
room she entered like a massive balloon that could not be contained merely by
walls and ceilings. Everywhere she looked, people effortlessly walked and
talked through her cloud as though it simply didn’t exist. She, however, could
hardly force words out, as the cloud sat so heavily in her throat and in her
chest.
And in an instant, it
became too much. The weight of this being that had taken residence inside her
became more than she could bear. It sat on her eyelids, pulling them closed. It
sat on her toungue, weighing it down. It filled her heart with its dark and
heavy sludge and she could feel it leaking out of her chest. For fear of this
oily darkness dripping onto the hard university desk in front of her and making
a mess, she mumbled an apology, and headed back to her home, to her bedbed
where, if she was lucky, she could slip into unconsciousness, and everything
that had rudely launched itself into existence this morning, would disappear
again as though it had never come into being in the first place.
