She clung to the roof of the sky, watching the clouds mass with her large silvery eyes. The webbing between her fingers and toes trembled as the wind bustled its way around her. It resented having to move around things, especially when those things would not fall in front of its might. Nimera would never fall to the wind. Her appendages had an iron grip that could hold her anywhere she may wish to go, vertical or horizontal. By now the roof knew her well enough and had a love for her that it would let their molecules mould and weld together. Moving fluidly between them, the molecules decreed that Nimera was the roof and the roof was Nimera. She had never feared falling, it was natural for things that go up to eventually come down again, except for the roofs, and they would always stay up.
Everything consists of layers. The body for example, be it human or animal it makes no difference molecularly. Each layer protects either what is above or below it, the skeleton protects the internal organs and supports the whole while the skin protects everything within its encompassing embrace. Always a part to be protected, layers preventing damage to what spurs it on. The world is also thus. The sky protects the surface and everything upon it while the core and rock ensure its safety with a steadfast base. What lies outside of the sky is uncertain; some think that there is something amazing, something fantastic and new. Nimera knows that there is nothing, a vast space of nothing, if only there was a hatch to go there.
Nimera watched as hatches opened and closed on the floor of the sky. People climbing in and out with bundles of cloud to be later processed to make cotton and the clothes, which Nimera despised. She felt that nudity was essential to experiencing everything that one could. As she clung her body rifled through blues and greens to a deep shade of purple as a cloud bumped into her protruding knee, apologising profusely as it floated onto bluer pastures.
Before the sun could disappear beyond the horizon, Nimera carefully extracted herself from the roof of the sky, molecule by molecule. She left it with a delicate kiss, bounding from cloud to cloud to reach the floor. She was once frightened, to stand there above the Earth watching through the transparent flooring to the town where she lived. He brother had held her up to clamber through the hatch to the East and had held her hand as they walked to where the boats had always disappeared. She hadn’t believed that the earth was round until that day, not until she had walked to the place where the boats disappeared and yet the sea kept going. There was no edge to be found, not in the world of the sky.
It’s the western hatch that she floats towards upon an amiable cloud. The hatches had become lighter with her every visit, her growing strength and their fondness of her smell. They almost flew open for her at slightest touch. Anything to please one so pretty and colourful and undeniably naked. Nimera found her lumbering clothes and dressed hurriedly, her shade dimming until it was barely noticeable. It would not do to arrive in the village vibrant and flushed. The neighbours would talk and the husband, well maybe the husband wouldn’t notice but it was respectful to him to arrive orderly and in a state of normality.
The doorway of the mud hut was littered with withering lilies, left by neighbours in a heartfelt and selfish gesture. Inside the fire was already burning, the smoke wafting its way through the hole in the roof to osmos through into the sky. The smell of freshly baked bread and sizzling bacon tickled the edges of Nimera’s mind reminding her of her stomach’s lack of food in a frighteningly long time.
Nimera’s husband was sat in his worn wicker chair, stroking the head of an earnest dog, long passed away and petrified in an upright regimental sitting position. The passage of time and the rough petting of the husband’s callused hands had provided the dog with a shining bald spot, imitating a monk in the more feral regions. The husband’s eyes glistened with freshly shed tears; Nimera removed her coat and kneeled by his side. As she descended he raised his hand and rested it upon her head, drawing her closer towards him until her head connected with his lap. With her pillow of lap wrapped tightly around the knees she began the daily routine.
“The bacon is cooking, Benim.”
Benim let his tears flow down his still face to drop steadily into Nimera’s palm. When she could hold no more, she drank, tasting salt and fear in a nauseating rush.
“Why do you cry, Benim?”
“The dog has died Nimera. I awoke this morning and you were gone, the dog was dead and I didn’t know what to do.” He had a lilting voice that wavered at equal moments to provide a songlike quality. A lullaby voice, a painful and remorseful lullaby.
“Benim, the dog has been dead a long time now. You know that I work for the sky in the mornings.”
“I know, that is why I cooked for you, so that you could eat now, now that you are at home.”
“Thank you my love, that is very kind of you.” Nimera stroked his knee and smiled as the tears began to dry on his face, his colour changed to a lighter shade of grey.
“Did Bara go with you today? He didn’t make any noise so I thought he must have left with you yes? Has he gone to the neighbour’s house for some food? You must call him back, he must eat with us.”
“My dear Benim, he has been gone a long time.”
“Then call him back he must come home at once, I won’t have him cavorting around with the neighbour children. They have no hygiene and can’t cook. It’s disgraceful.” Nimera bit her lip until she felt a welt of heat and a thickness sliding down her throat. It was difficult for her to continue but she is his memory, his path to Earth.
“Benim, Bara disappeared a very long time ago. He wasn’t a boy even then. He was lost to the sky ten years gone. Our son is dead Benim.”
She let his hand tighten around her head, listened while her blood fought to continue its journey. He wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer, her brain could swell again and he would return to his charred cooking. Nimera would return to the roof of the sky once fed and once Benim had lain himself down to drift. He would drift through memories that had never and would never be his. His eyelids would become greyer until he finally slept a dreamless sleep that washed the days away.
Bara’s fascination or even obsession with the outside of the sky surpassed even Nimera’s. He would cling to the roof every night and morning, changing his colour and constantly experimenting. He believed that people held a trapdoor within themselves. If the exact colour of the sky could be replicated then the sky would assume that the person was part of itself. With this achieved, Bara was certain that changing one’s shade ever so slightly, perhaps darker, the sky would deposit them on the other side of itself thus satisfying his curiosity. He needed to feed his craving adolescent mind. Occasionally Nimera would accompany him but his constant failure and frustration was too much for her to bear. She preferred to find her own spot, far from anyone to continue her molecular affair. The sky was more her husband than Benim could ever have been.
One morning Nimera had travelled with Bara to the roof, through trapdoors and over clouds. He had chosen his spot and she had left him, glancing back to watch as his colour adjusted and perfected. As afternoon had come rolling by, Nimera had skitted back to where she had left her son. He was not there, not a trace was left of him. She had first thought that he had achieved his goal that he was on the outside and she yearned to be with him. His clothes were still piled neatly where she had left them and so she took them up in her arms and took them home. Her smile began to fade and disappear as the neighbours shouted to her on passing.
“That Bara of yours just passed through here.”
“Naked he was, gave me the fright of my life.”
“Big stupid grin and orange as a pumpkin he was!”
“Needs a hiding from your good Benim, I say.”
“Such a disgrace.”
Nimera’s heart grew darker as she began to believe that her son was somewhere on Earth. Stark naked and raving mad. She couldn’t travel to find him, she wouldn’t know where to start and Benim would punish her for leaving him alone for all the breakfasts it would take to find Bara. She collected her tears in a turquoise jar and travelled to the roof of the sky to shed them on the clouds. The roof liked this, liked to believe that they were being shed for it alone. It wanted to tell her what it had done but had no mouth to speak, no hands to write or wave, no eyes to blink or stare. It would show Nimera one day but it didn’t want to let her go, wanted to feel her tears for as long as possible. Bara had never returned and Benim had descended into madness, spiralling dementia.
Naked and bright, Nimera began to soak into the sky, her hands and knees sank in further with every visit. She had no fear of falling downwards but did she have a fear of falling upwards? Clouds wafted towards her and bade their greetings, washing the grime and sweat from her face and body. The sky seemed overly eager that evening. It pulled at the atoms in her hands drawing them into it, wrapping tendrils around her wrists. Nimera was oblivious to the pull and the depth of which she was plunging, she was watching the blackness, willing to know of nothing else. Her colour began to change as molecules from the roof began to tap into her nervous system. Blue to orange to purple to yellow to blue to blue. The surrounding clouds began to filter themselves through Nimera’s nostrils and mouth reaching her brain and calming it into a lull of sleep. Cocooned in a bed of soft, fluffy clouds her brain could register nothing other than her strong heart beat.
Tendrils burst from the roof, enveloping Nimera’s body, which was now almost indistinguishable due to her colour matching that of the sky. They drew her deeper and deeper into the sky where she floated as if in liquid. The tendrils worked their way through Nimera’s body, removing any oxygen that they could find. Blood was replaced with cloud linings and her nostrils were bunged with an essence of the sky. Pressure was applied to her body, gradually so as not to crush her until she could withstand anything. Slivers of sky grafted themselves to her eyeballs, coating them in an extra lid that could withstand great light and great darkness. The sky spun her around over and over again, touching every molecule, every cell of Nimera before it pushed her out. You were mine, it says, and I loved you, did you love me too?
The clouds decrease their cushioning and Nimera’s brain forces its way through the warm fuzz. It’s all black. There’s nothing in front of her eyes, she can barely see the hands in front of her face. She smiles as the darkness tentatively prods her, examines her body and mind. A hand touches hers. She turns to see Bara, his eyes glistening and that unforgettable grin streaked across his face. She touches him, ensuring that he is real and not her mind playing foul tricks upon her.
“Sit with me mother.”
They sit cross-legged, hand touching hand. They sit on top of the world and watch the darkness as it dances for them.
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