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jchrisobrienThe clouds looked beautiful today. They always do from about 10,000 feet. Piled high with intricate turrets, valleys, alcoves, cul-de-sacs. Solid looking as a mountain. Tangible as ghost. But it's easy to forget that.
I'm watching the clouds from the observation deck, behind the dubious safety of an inch of plexiglass. My father is sitting outside. (Should he be having difficulty breathing? He is not.) As we climb through the castles and sky dunes, a new cloud appears before us. This one is ominous: charcoal and pitch in a sky of gauzy white and icy blue. It folds in on itself like a vast diseased brain, and it turns independently of the wind. And we are heading straight for it. I watch it spin towards us, the details and fold growing more distinct and vivid the close we get to it. It fills my vision, it becomes the entire world to me and that's when I remember my father is still sitting outside as we hit it.
One second there is an intricately shaped wall rushing at us, the next is just smoke and rushing shadow blasting over the window at high speeds, I flinch after the first moment of contact, then look deep into the heart of the cloud. Images rush past me like ghosts, my subconscious plucking faces and forms writhing in the smoke, existing for a split second then bursting back into formlessness. My eyes wander downward and I can see the silhouette of my father, but not details. Just a shroud of smoke that bleeds off of his form, a rippling outline, and I can't look back into the clouds now, all my attention is focused on him.
Until it's gone, the last curls of vapor pulled as we break free, and light floods the observation deck again. The blue skies are still there, the white clouds and the silence around us. My father just turns his head to me, and gives me a thumbs up. His eyes as watery, but he's smiling. That smile warms me down to the bone. I walk to the door, my hands spinning the release wheel, and I join my father outside. The view slides to the left, we approach another of these dark clouds. I sit next to my father and watch as the cloud spins towards us.
I'm watching the clouds from the observation deck, behind the dubious safety of an inch of plexiglass. My father is sitting outside. (Should he be having difficulty breathing? He is not.) As we climb through the castles and sky dunes, a new cloud appears before us. This one is ominous: charcoal and pitch in a sky of gauzy white and icy blue. It folds in on itself like a vast diseased brain, and it turns independently of the wind. And we are heading straight for it. I watch it spin towards us, the details and fold growing more distinct and vivid the close we get to it. It fills my vision, it becomes the entire world to me and that's when I remember my father is still sitting outside as we hit it.
One second there is an intricately shaped wall rushing at us, the next is just smoke and rushing shadow blasting over the window at high speeds, I flinch after the first moment of contact, then look deep into the heart of the cloud. Images rush past me like ghosts, my subconscious plucking faces and forms writhing in the smoke, existing for a split second then bursting back into formlessness. My eyes wander downward and I can see the silhouette of my father, but not details. Just a shroud of smoke that bleeds off of his form, a rippling outline, and I can't look back into the clouds now, all my attention is focused on him.
Until it's gone, the last curls of vapor pulled as we break free, and light floods the observation deck again. The blue skies are still there, the white clouds and the silence around us. My father just turns his head to me, and gives me a thumbs up. His eyes as watery, but he's smiling. That smile warms me down to the bone. I walk to the door, my hands spinning the release wheel, and I join my father outside. The view slides to the left, we approach another of these dark clouds. I sit next to my father and watch as the cloud spins towards us.
