News from the Clouds by Robert Llewellyn

Author:Robert Llewellyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9781783520589
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2015-03-25T12:31:17+00:00

19

‘I heard today that the storm finishes at 3:14 tomorrow,’ I said to Theda a few days later. She had just washed her hair and was using a very bizarre little ball of material to dry it. I assumed she was drying it; she was rubbing the small ball over her head, which seemed to leave her short, mousey hair very dry.

I was sitting on my little chair cleaning under my fingernails with a bit of wood I’d found in some of the soil I’d been planting shallots in. Life in our little apartment had become reassuringly domestic.

‘Yes, I heard the same information today,’ she said without looking at me.

‘So, does that mean a cloud could come and visit?’

‘I imagine it’s a possibility, although I have been working with the dimension committee so I have been a little preoccupied,’ she said as she finally finished rubbing her fluffy hair and sat down opposite me. She smiled. ‘I think we are in the same ship. We would both like to go home, is that not correct?’

‘Yeah, although it’s the same boat.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The old English phrase is, “we’re in the same boat”, not ship.’

‘It means the same thing does it not?’

‘Yes it does,’ I said. I enjoyed this little moment simply because it was simple. It was the sort of conversation that could have happened in any century for the last thousand years, two people with different native tongues learning the intricacies of each other’s language. Of course it would have been simpler if it had been two people from the same time period, the same dimension in space–time, the same bloody world. It would have been simpler if it didn’t involve an utterly baffling relationship requiring me to think of this older woman as my great-granddaughter. I preferred to think of Theda at that moment as just a German woman with fluffy hair who claimed we were in the same ship.

‘I’m going out for a walk tomorrow as soon as the winds drop,’ I said. Theda looked up at me a little alarmed.

‘You mean you are going outside the culvert?’

‘Yes, not on my own or anything brave and foolhardy, I’m going with Noshi.’

‘Noshi!’

‘Yes, Noshi. He’s fine, he’s very charming and kind, I know he was once from one of the Original Five clouds but he’s left them now and I can tell he’s not one of them.’

Theda just looked at me without saying anything.

‘I work with him when I’m gardening,’ I added. ‘By the way, you’ve got to try his apples, they’re bloody amazing.’

I handed her an apple I’d carried back from the garden dome. ‘Noshi told me it was okay to take a couple.’

‘Thank you.’ She took a bite and chewed for a while, nodded and said, ‘Well, he can grow a good apple.’

‘Hydroponic apple trees. The most bizarre things I’ve ever seen,’ I said.

‘You have to be careful, Gavin. You and I are strangers here, we don’t know the intricacies of Noshi’s history, who he is in contact with.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.