A Conversation with a Cloud

clouds2I lay on the summer grass with a young lady friend of mine. We were holding hands affectionately, talking softly about nature, love, and a future that was fated never to happen. As we talked about nothing of lasting importance, I pointed to a dying cloud. All of the clouds drifting lazily overhead were dying as the day’s heat was dissipating and the air was becoming calm, preparing for evening.

I suspect it’s an infrequent event when someone points out an act of nature that had always been visible, but had never been noticed. Indeed, we watched, not saying a word, as the first of the day’s puffy clouds ceased to exist.

I was pleased with myself; glad that my prediction had been proven true, and pleased with her reaction. In fact, I was so pleased that I still remember that incident, many years later, even though the face of the girl has mercifully faded from my memory.

However, now that I have matured enough to ponder the imponderables of life, I realize there is more to the story. As I replay the event in my mind I realize that the cloud talked back to me.

I know that sounds bizarre, but all I can say is that my memories, perhaps having been repressed due to their strangeness, are finding their way back into my consciousness. Perhaps there’s a reason for their reappearance at this stage in my life.

I am not dying; the cloud closest to me seemed to be saying.

I was at first taken aback. After all, who’s ever heard a cloud speak.

I said I am not dying.

OK, if a cloud is willing to talk to me, I suppose I should respond. That would only be polite.

“Yes you are,” I argued, politely of course. “You’re getting thinner by the minute. In fact, you’re disappearing before my eyes.”

I’m not dying; I’m resting.

I laughed, with Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch in my mind.

“Well, resting or not, you’re quickly disappearing.”

But I’m still here.

“You’ll be long gone, any minute now.”

I am moisture; water vapor. That will still exist. It just won’t be visible to you.

“But your whiteness, your cloud, what you are, will be gone.”

I am not a cloud. I am moisture. A cloud is my physical appearance, but that changes throughout my life. And regardless of how I look, what I am, vapor, still exists.

“Well, you’re looking very anemic now.”

I am not anemic!

Apparently the fading cloud had feelings, and perhaps a little bit of a temper.

“Well, you are at least looking very benign right now.”

Like I said, I am resting. Today my mission is to provide shade. Today is an easy life for me.

“So, does that mean you’ll be reborn tomorrow?”

Of course.

“And you’ll look different?”

No two clouds are ever alike.

Strangely, I was beginning to understand that cloud, just a little perhaps, through some seemingly impossible way. And then I had an uncharacteristically profound thought, for a young man.

“You say the true you is nothing more than water vapor. Would you call that your soul?”

By now the cloud had completely disappeared, but I could still hear its voice in my head.

It is what I am. It is always there; it does not change. If that is what you call a soul, then so be it.

By now the voice of that thing that used to be a cloud was fading as the invisible vapor moved on.

Needless to say, I did not discuss what I was hearing with my then girlfriend. She moved on to another boy soon enough.

The next day dawned with building cumulus. There was instability in the air, and clouds were pregnant with moisture. Wishing for confirmation of what had happened the day before, I turned my attention to the nearest cloud.

“You look full of life this morning.”

I heard nothing.

I tried again, “You look very full of life this morning.”

You talkin to me boy? The cloud was growing vertically as well as horizontally.

“Well, I was trying to.”

Yes, I thought I heard you thinking I was pregnant.

I sincerely hoped that no one else could hear this … uh… conversation, if you could call it that.

You’re right, though. I’m about to give birth.

“To rain?” I wondered out loud.

Rain? Oh no. That’s the process, but not what is borne.

“I don’t understand”.

I give birth to puddles, ponds, lakes and oceans; any container that my rain falls into.

“Containers? Really?”

Tell me little man, do you have a mind?

I laughed. “Last time I checked. What a strange thing for a cloud to ask.”

OK, then where is it?

“In my head of course. In my brain.”

Oh you silly little man.

“What?”

Your brain is the container. Your mind is shaped by the container, but it is not the container.

It seemed very strange getting a lesson — well, maybe I could charitably call it a philosophy lesson — from a cloud. But then they tell me all knowledge is being stored in clouds. I wonder if this is what they mean.

Pay attention. I’m telling you important stuff here.

“I’m sorry; my mind was wandering.”

Minds do that. They don’t like being kept in containers; it’s too confining.

“Do tell.”

Do you know your mind survives even when your brain does not? Your mind can leave its container just like my water can leave its containers.

This was beginning to sound suspiciously like the ancient mind-body problem. Is the mind the brain, or vice versa?

Except that could not possibly be. After all, I was talking to a — cloud.

“So if we have a soul, you’re saying our soul retains its mind?”

You like that word, “Soul”. You used it yesterday.

“How do you know that?”

If you can believe it, that cloud chuckled, in a vaporous sort of way… I swear it did.

All information is shared in the clouds. That’s why I’m talking to you.

But to answer your question, yes. Your soul retains its mind. Actually, humans have been taught this for thousands of years. Yet most of them still don’t seem to understand. Which puzzles me — it’s really not that difficult.

“You know, I hate to be skeptical, but you seem way too smart for a cloud.”

Oh come now, do you really think clouds can talk?

For some inexplicable reason I was shocked by that question. Apparently I had already suspended disbelief as this second day’s conversation had become more and more interesting.

Having been forced back to reality, I answered. “Well … no. Not really.”

They’re a parable. It’s Me whose talking to you.

“Me who?”

There was no answer. I asked again, “Me who?”

 

That question has never been answered.

If Whales Could Fly

When Ottorini Respighi wrote his symphonic poem Pines of Rome, he was not imagining flying whales. Instead, the last movement of his work invokes the imagery of a Roman Legion marching along the Via Appia Antica.  When I would listen to the drumming and droning of the orchestra I never imagined whales flying either, at least prior to the year 2000.

But somebody at Disney Studios did, as evidenced by Fantasia 2000. The flying whales animation, accompanied by Respighi’s score, is now one of my favorite segments of the Fantasia 2000 DVD.

With a name like Fantasia, we should fully expect fantasy, fantasy being defined as an art form devoid of any requirements for plausible scientific foundations.  And Fantasia has always delivered that art form in abundance.

In contrast, science fiction may have fantastic elements in it, but there is an expectation that the writers’ creations be somewhat defensible on the basis of known scientific principles. So, what if whales could fly? What would be the real world consequences of such an improbable occurrence? What does science have to say about it?

For one thing, flying whale babies would not have to worry about being eaten by Orcas, as mentioned in my last posting. So whale populations would increase, unless the inexperienced calves flew into wind farms and airplanes.

As a pilot and airline passenger, my first concern would be whether airborne whales could be detected on radar. Is the whale’s smoothly rounded shape, it’s tough but flexible skin and potentially radar absorbing blubber stealthy in the same way that stealth bombers elude detection by radar?  If so, the air traffic control system would have real problems. Sure, flying whales would be easy to see in day light, but can you imagine encountering them at night or in clouds without benefit of radar? I shudder to think.

And yes, whales migrate continuously, night and day, so they would be a gargantuan risk to air traffic in low visibility conditions. Compared to a whale strike, bird strikes would be a minor affair.

What if flying whales blunder into restricted air space, like over the White House? There are missiles there, I hear, capable of shooting down intruders. But would I want to be the one to pull a trigger that blows a whale to blubbery bits all over Washington D.C.?

Perhaps whales would be granted an exempt status, like migrating geese. But what if terrorists took advantage of that and managed to bring down an intact whale in the middle of the White House Rose Garden? I haven’t calculated the kinetic energy of a full grown falling Gray Whale, but at a weight of 40 tons or so, I doubt anything trapped under the  whale would survive the impact.

Unfortunately, a science fiction writer envisioning flying whales can’t avoid the inevitability of whale poop. While bird poop is an inconvenience, falling whale products of digestion would likely prove lethal. What a lousy way to die. (OK, I admit I was thinking of using a different adjective.)

The Achilles’ heel of any flying whale story would have to be buoyancy. It has been estimated that approximately half of a grown whale’s weight is derived from blubber. What if a whale replaced all of its blubber with hydrogen? [While I could choose helium as a buoyant gas, helium is not produced biologically, whereas hydrogen is, as a product of flatulence.]

Hydrogen has a specific buoyancy of approximately 71 lbs per 1000 cubic ft, so a 20,000 lb whale (stripped of all blubber) would need about 282,000 cubic feet of hydrogen to be neutrally buoyant (to float in air). To put that into perspective, the Goodyear Blimp weights 12,840 lbs, and has a volume of 202,7oo cubic feet. So a flying whale would have to be roughly 50% larger than the Goodyear blimp. [I leave a more exact calculation to high school physics students looking for an imaginative problem to solve.]

From a science fiction standpoint, that is entirely conceivable. Buoyant whales would be much larger than modern whales.

As for a means of propulsion, I don’t think whale fins would suffice; they don’t look enough like wings.  But with a little imagination, I bet most school kids could think of a means of propulsion that would be akin to, dare I say, jet propulsion.

I think I now have the makings of a science fiction novel. I’ve got the science figured out: all I need now is a plot and some interesting human characters.

To be continued, perhaps …