To feel the stars (cont.)

or, Part 2 (of 2) of another fragment of Precipice

Part I | Part II

Last week I posted part of this fragment of Precipice, my ongoing SciFi story.

If you missed it, or you’d like to return, you can envelop yourself in Jisa’s blanket via this link (make sure to leave some space for Cloud, too):

To feel the stars

As ever, posting fragments, splitting things, sweating over words and ideas … it all makes me wonder on the difficulty of trying to serialise something online.

But, onwards we trek, to see how Jisa’s conversation with Cloud—a conversation tinged with guilt, hope, lust—concludes, and what it might set in motion.

A dream. A city. A lot of Cloud. (Imaginings by Midjourney.)

---

Cloud looks to me, a slight shake of his head. “Is it OK?” he asks, his face in momentary grimace. “This,” he motions between the two of us, “this is a mess, but one I welcomed easily.”

“I can assure you I’m not worth the fuss,” but my mind cannot help plead against those words. I would never usually care—never know, even—if a man was acting unfaithfully, yet … why is this so different? What have I allowed myself into?

Cloud pulls me toward him and at first I resist, hesitate, but then this nascent and weaker part of me gives in and I find myself nestled between his legs, his chest accepting my back as though we have become pieces of some intricate puzzle that can finally interlock. He wraps the thick blanket around us and together we sit in silence; a silence within which I could remain, forever, enclosed in its safety.

Yet my mind drifts, unable to be stopped. I have her name and she has become real. Where before she was just a picture, a disclosure of a secret that facedown could remain hidden in my mind, her name has solidified her reality, connected us in a manner that gnaws.

I look out through the window, a pathetic effort to distract myself. In these short moments, the sun has crept up and over the horizon, drenching clouds with amber, setting off a thousand prismatic reflections scattered from countless windows. This is another world, I think, and as I stare I begin to believe that I am simply not here. That I do not exist. That my actions and their associated consequences hold no meaning.

Some minutes pass, though I do not know how many. I slip into the strange period of near-sleep where consciousness and dream collide, where reality is twisted and deformed. It is in one of these moments that I hear words leaving my mouth.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask, realising it is a question that has been waiting all night to be said.

For the longest moment Cloud says nothing, and I fear that he will reply with an answer I do not wish to hear.

“I needed you to see it,” he says, finally. “The city. This view. All of it.” His chest rises then falls, carrying me with it, and as his fingers interlace through mine he adds, “and because I had to see you.”

“Had to?” I say, hating my tone, aware that I have stepped across the sharp blade of self-doubt. “This was your way of telling me? About Tess?”

“No, Jisa,” he starts, trying to turn me around in his arms. I refuse, fight against him like a child, but do not move from him; nor do I release my fingers from his.

“Jisa, listen,” he says, stopping his attempts. “It’s not like that. I’ve messed up, I know. This … when I found you yesterday, it wasn’t some plan to end up like this. That’s not me. That’s not what I do.”

My eyes flit across the window’s surface, dart to the ceiling, then settle back to the spot above the blanket where our hands hide entwined beneath.

“I know what you may think,” he continues. “You have every right. But it’s the last thing I want. When we met with Zinn—when we met—it was like someone rearranged the pieces in a game whilst I wasn’t looking. I walked out of that bar disoriented, confused.”

“Deek’s,” I say, no real idea why. “The bar’s called Deek’s.”

“Right. Deek’s.” He stops, shifts position, holds me tighter. “I didn’t sleep. I walked the streets of Siridan muddled.”

“I … I was the same.”

“I paced the streets,” he says, planting a kiss at the crown of my hair. “I couldn’t even tell you which. Three times I went to call Zinn but three times I decided against it.”

“Why?”

“Why? Yeah, I found myself asking that, too. I realised it was because there was only one thing I wanted to ask him. And I didn’t know whether he would give me the answer.”

A thick wad of adrenaline sinks into my stomach, as it had last night.

Tilting my head back, giving in to him again, I say one thing: “Me?”

“Yes,” he says, and I can see his smile, upside down as I crane my head. “I think I would have gone insane if I hadn’t found you.”

I close my eyes, loop my arm around his neck and steal a slow kiss, his stubble bristling against my lips.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling myself slip carefully from that blade. Then I laugh. “Those are not words many hear from me. But,” and another tear wells maddeningly from the corner of my eye, to drip down my cheek, “thank you,” I whisper.

His arms wrap around my body and he squeezes me. “Why are you thanking me?”

“Stupid reasons, probably.” And I smile, contemplating the idiocy of hormones and emotions, how all-encompassing they can be. “Things are never just simple.” A few steps and it could be, I do not add.

Cloud’s phone goes off with a single beep, piercing the silence, betraying its location by the bedside. He ignores it. Says nothing of it.

“The city,” he says, as if beginning this whole conversation again. “What do you see?”

“It’s … beautiful. Breath-taking.” And it is. This is no lie. I thought the night-time vista was a sight to behold, but dawn is beyond anything I could imagine. I can no longer see the stars above—in their place is a sky of purest sapphire. Below, sunlight glints against every surface, every pane, every structure, whilst clouds sift and drift between.

“I wanted you to see it like this. The way I see it. Every morning I stop and look, make sure I never take it for granted.”

“I understand.”

“No,” he says. “What I mean is, I make sure I’m not taking for granted what this city is. Where it lies. What it lies above. My city. Your city.”

“Siridan,” I complete for him.

“Yes, Siridan. A once-jewel, a place now covered, a rug thrown over an object of embarrassment.” He sighs. “People here live in denial. The first generation, those that are left, they either hide it or they convince themselves enough so as to forget. To them, there is no city beneath. Not anymore. The ones born here, most of those choose to ignore it, consciously or not. If they can’t see it, then perhaps it doesn’t exist,” his voice trails off.

How? How can you live like that? How can you go about a life stepping on a city whose very foundations are supported by another world, a world that still exists and grinds onwards, carrying the paradise above it?

“What of those that,” I choose my words carefully, “found their way here?”

“Like me, you mean?”

I tilt my head back towards his, cradle into his shoulder, a silent lock of my hair falling across my eyes. “Yes,” I say. “Like you.”

“The lucky ones.” Cloud strokes the hair aside. “Perhaps you might think so. But I don’t know if luck is the correct word.”

Cloud moves his hand so it rests on my stomach. He keeps it there a moment, fingers spreading out to explore my skin, one finding its way to my bellybutton.

“Was Tess … ?” I say, unable to stop myself.

“Yes. She was born here, yes. I think she longs to leave. To explore, I mean. The Lowerscape. Siridan. Beyond.”

“Invite her down, then. The three of us can have dinner together.” I bite my tongue, stop myself from continuing as the glare of morning creeps across us, daylight working to tarnish this dream. I long for the night, to go back. I would relive it all if I could, even though I taste its outcome. Its ending.

“I’m sorry,” Cloud says. “Truly. I—”

“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “I knew as soon as I walked in. Before, probably. I let it continue. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. If I could go back, I would. I wouldn’t change it, OK? So don’t say those words. Don’t. I just—”

“What?”

“I hate endings,” I manage.

“Endings?”

“Like in books. I never finish books. I leave them unfinished, unresolved, so I can decide for myself how they end. So I can eventually forget about them.”

Cloud laughs. “I don’t follow.” And he doesn't. “That’s odd, Jisa.” He laughs again, and for a moment I could trick myself into believing that we are an ordinary couple, sharing a morning together with everything ahead, a trail of history behind. But no. That’s not what this is.

Cloud places his lips to my head, his muffled voice sending out soft vibrations. “What I meant before is that those like me are in the unique position to have lived and seen both sides. A minority, yes. Maybe it makes me lucky. Or the opposite.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“No, I do. But I have to remind myself that this is no paradise. It may look it. But it isn’t. They built this city, and Omark before, and all those being built, as a means to survive. This was—is— a way to … to cheat the world. A way around the ruin. But temporary, in a sense.”

I nod. Everyone understands the purpose of the Cloudscape.

“Except it isn’t.”

“What do you mean, it isn’t? It isn’t what?” I ask, sitting up.

“The Kernel, Jisa. Where is it?”

I look, scan the horizon for the building Cloud speaks of—the very same one spoken of two nights previously. In the distance, to the far edge of Vi, in a spot I had paid little attention to until now, I can make out the looming shape of curved glass. The view is part obstructed by the glare of daylight, but it is there. I have seen it in images enough to recognise it. One of the giant biomes built across the Cloudscape, The Kernel sweeps along the outer east of Vi, there to let the light feed all that grows within.

“There,” I point.

He nods. “Yes. Not hard to miss.”

“This task. That’s why you brought me here?”

“I wanted you to see it. The city and The Kernel. There is something I have heard. Something I wish with all my heart is not true.” Cloud turns to me, eyes intense as flame. “Something that I am asking you to get.”

My brain begins to catch up. “To steal, you mean?”

“To steal,” he affirms, his words slow and heavy.

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Another fragment concludes. Thoughts, likes, dislikes, comments … as always, I’d love to hear from you.