Entry in the April 2020 r/writingprompts Images Contest
There is something strangely cathartic about watching these creatures as they dream.
They bundle up together, cold-blooded as they are, in seemingly random piles; some resting their heads on the ground while others drape themselves over their fellow creatures. The occasional somnambulist will rise, tripping over roots and stumbling over moss-encrusted rocks before falling into a pile and joining it without hesitation.
I suppose the most ergonomic word to describe them would be “bulbous”, or perhaps “grotesque”. Both have been suggested to me by friends and colleagues, and neither captures the strange, ethereal grace that clings to these creatures’ features like dew to leaves.
It takes a surprising amount of effort to study these beings, despite- or perhaps because of- their gentle and unassuming nature. Each observation has to be made from a distance of more than fifty feet, with little to no noise, and absolutely no contact is to be initiated under any circumstances.
These measures seem extreme. But once you understand the reasons behind them… well, they’re still pretty extreme. It’s entirely possible that the higher-ups who laid them down for us believe that we are under the influence of some exotic hallucinogen, and that the creatures we’re reporting over the field radio are some very strangely shaped kumquats.
Au contraire, co-workers.
What follows are a few miscellaneous observations I’ve made over the course of the past fortnight or so.
- Their habitats aren’t unusual for creatures of their sort. Well, creatures of ‘their’ sort is a gigantic misnomer. These tiny little poofters (I’m not entirely sure what that word means, but I feel as though the shape of it fits) are phylogeny’s worst nightmare. Where on the phylogenetic tree do these beings fit? It feels like they should be a step up from single celled organisms, but… are they, really?
- I don’t believe the scientific community was truly prepared for a discovery like this right under our noses. I’m certain that if we woke up tomorrow and found no trace of these creatures, we would just accept it and move on with our lives. It sounds deranged, but I so desperately want them to be real, and I can’t be certain that they are.
- I can’t say much about their bodily composition, or their inner workings. I’m a behavioural expert, not a physiological one. Still, I will say this- they don’t appear to share all that much in common with humans and apes. For one, their bodies are composed almost entirely of water vapour.
I stopped there in my notebook. The pen had run dry, and I’d tried to keep writing for a few seconds longer- so the last few words were simply indentations in the paper. There’s a joke in there somewhere, but I’ll let you, dear reader, figure that one out yourself.
Continuing where I left off.
There’s no research so into how they hold their bodies together, or if they have a circulatory system, or a digestive or a nervous system, or any information about how large their brains are, or where they get their energy from-
There’s quite a lot we don’t know, if we’re honest. There are a few reasons for this. One, in order to figure all these things out we’d have to dissect one of them. And even if we were given the go ahead from big brother over at HQ… I don’t think anybody’s got the heart, honestly. Especially given how they look.
I’ve only just noticed that I’ve come all this way without describing their appearance. Suppose it’s as good a place as any.
They look like us, to start with.
Chalk white with bits of grey rolling about inside their torsos like miniature thunderstorms playing pong; legs and arms that don’t appear to have any joints in them; gigantic eyes, hardly any noses, mouths that seem unable to form any shape except an ‘o’ of fascination- the works. It’s uncanny.
Granted, their features are only vaguely humanoid. However, please consider that these appear to be cloud people. Excuse my unprofessionalism.
Regardless, it should be noted that this resemblance isn’t simply a superfluous detail- it is actively influencing how we’re interacting with them.
One of my colleagues believes he’s found a way to identify these creatures through the changing grey smudges on their bodies. While this is fascinating, he’s taken the opportunity to give each one a nice, human name. And he’s grouped them into families. Despite the fact that we’re pretty sure these creatures don’t reproduce sexually. His justification? They’re cute!
Now, I can’t pretend to not be affected by this- though it is in a decidedly different way. While most of my colleagues here on site believe that these creatures are not intelligent -why would they? They’re displaying no signs of it- I choose to disagree. I believe these creatures show no signs of intelligence because they’re still leaning.
What’s that? It sounds like I’ve finally lost it? Well, hear me out before you put me in the padded cell.
From the moment they wake to the moment they fall asleep at the end of the day, they appear to do nothing except wander around, taking in the sights. And this isn’t just ordinary pack animal behaviour, this is properly deliberate. They’re absorbing, as opposed to simply seeing.
Now, to the average layperson (and to most experts), these seem like the ramblings of somebody who’s been sleeping in the foliage for the past six months and hasn’t seen a roll of toilet paper in twice that time. But frankly, they haven’t seen what I’ve seen.
Mainly because I lost a bet and had to take up residence in the watchtower last month. But I wear that scar with pride!
I find myself recalling one incident in particular I had the strange pleasure of observing; a creature’s first encounter with another living being.
It was maybe late afternoon. The sun had begun its gradual descent towards the treetops but wasn’t so far gone as to coat the world with the warm orange glow characteristic of dusk. A few of the creatures had broken off from the main pack and were loosely congregated around a tiny pool with a trickle of water falling into it from above.
As two of them reclined near the top of a rock formation and another stared directly into the sun, one of the creatures leant over to stare into the pool, mouth- as always- shaped into an ‘o’ of fascination. It could see something I couldn’t from where I was sitting.
As I watched, a school of fish so small and vibrant they looked like rose petals on the water darted across the surface of the pond. The creature closest to the pond took a step back, and for a second I worried it would wobble and fall in. Instead, it bowed down onto one knee so as to see the fish better.
It dipped a hand into the water, ripples cascading out and driving the fish into the depths. It paused, and I could almost see the gears turning…
It removed its hand and waited patiently. In just under a minute, the fish had resurfaced. It looked up at the other creatures, mouth imitating an oddly deformed grin. They came over, and as another one of the creatures reached its hand out to disturb the surface, the first stopped him with a gentle touch.
Currently, it is a point of contention among myself and my colleagues whether they are simply stuck with the one expression, or if they are so endlessly fascinated with the world around them that they just look like that all the time.
These creatures aren’t perfect. But we can give them a chance.
Interestingly, we don’t really have a name for them yet. Firstly because, as I mentioned before, they are a phylogenetic nightmare, but also because… what would we name them?
Generally, the names we award (that feels like the wrong word) species are supposed to encapsulate what the species is etymologically. Homo antecessor- pioneer man. Homo habilis- handy man. Homo sapien- wise man. Each of these names reflects what we know about our ancestors. However, that doesn’t really work for these creatures. We haven’t been observing them for all that long, and it’s not like we can dig up fossils. They dissolve into nothing when they die.
Oh, did I mention that? They have a lifespan of about a month, and at the end of it they just evaporate. Really freaked out a new hire who’d just arrived last week.
But I digress. I’ve already had three colleagues simply suggest “cloud people” as an appropriate name. Really? And another colleague suggested “residuique consumpti nubes” after a visit to a town that had Wi-Fi. Utterly abysmal.
Personally, I feel like they should have a name that truly captures their essence, their odd grace, their desire to learn… and, of course, their resemblance to us.
‘Homo animus’ is my suggestion. I’m certain that there’s a better way to word it, especially since I can’t exactly whip out my phone and google some synonyms for ‘smart’ in Latin. Still, if my memory serves me right, this loosely translates to ‘human mind’. Isn’t that perfect?
Well, not really. I still feel as though I haven’t captured their true essence. It’s incredibly difficult to quantify. Could you give a person a name so perfect, so true that it would make you understand everything about them?
Ah, well. Names won’t ever be perfect. I’m certain there’s more to humans than just being wise, after all.
Besides, perhaps we aren’t supposed to understand these creatures. Perhaps we are simply to observe as they live and they learn, completely and utterly free until they slip back into the infinite expanse on the other side of the clouds.