Cloud Atlas

back, turned bad colors, stopped kickin’ an’ died.

Jayjo she was clammy ’n’ tallow an’ looked like dyin’ too. The women telled me to clear out an’ make space for the herb’list.

I took the died babbit wrapped in a woolsack to the Bony Shore. So lornsome I was, wond’rin’ if Jayjo’s seed was rotted or my seed was rotted or jus’ my luck was rotted. Slack mornin’ it was under the bloodflower bushes, waves lurched up the beach like sickly cows an’ fell over. Buildin’ the babbit’s mound din’t take as long as Pa’s. Bony Shore had the air o’ kelp an’ flesh ’n’ rottin’, old bones was lyin’ ’mongst the pebbles, an’ you din’t hang ’bout longer ’n you needed to, ’cept you was borned a fly or a raven.

Jayjo she din’t die, nay, but she never laughed twirly like b’fore an’ we din’t marry, nay, you got to know your seeds’ll grow a purebirth or sumthin’ close, yay? Or who’ll scrape the moss off your roof an’ oil your icon ’gainst termites when you’re gone? So if I met Jayjo at a gath’rin’ or bart’rin’ she’d say, Rainy mornin’ ain’t it? an’ I’d answer, Yay, rain till nightfall it will I reck’n, an’ we’d pass by. She married a leather maker from Kane Valley three years after, but I din’t go to their marryin’ feast.

It was a boy. Our died no-name babbit. A boy.

Valleysmen only had one god an’ her name it was Sonmi. Savages on Big I norm’ly had more gods ’n you could wave a spiker at. Down in Hilo they prayed to Sonmi if they’d the moodin’ but they’d got other gods too, shark gods, volcano gods, corn gods, sneeze gods, hairy-wart gods, oh, you name it, the Hilo’d birth a god for it. The Kona’d got a hole tribe o’ war gods an’ horse gods ’n’ all. But for Valleysmen savage gods weren’t worth knowin’, nay, only Sonmi was real.

She lived ’mongst us, minderin’ the Nine Folded Valleys. Most times we cudn’t see her, times was she was seen, an old crone with a stick, tho’ I sumtimes seen her as a shimm’rin’ girl. Sonmi helped sick uns, fixed busted luck, an’ when a truesome ’n’ civ’lized Valleysman died she’d take his soul an’ lead it back into a womb somewhere in the Valleys. Time was we mem’ried our gone lifes, times was we cudn’t, times was Sonmi telled Abbess who was who in a dreamin’, times was she din’t .?.?. but we knew we’d always be reborned as Valleysmen, an’ so death weren’t so scarysome for us, nay.

Unless Old Georgie got your soul, that is. See, if you b’haved savage-like an’ selfy an’ spurned the Civ’lize, or if Georgie tempted you into barb’rism an’ all, then your soul got heavy ’n’ jagged an’ weighed with stones. Sonmi cudn’t fit you into no womb then. Such crookit selfy people was called “stoned” an’ no fate was more dreadsome for a Valleysman.

The Icon’ry was the only buildin’ on Bony Shore ’tween Kane Valley an’ Honokaa Valley. There was no say-so ’bout keepin’ out, but no un went in idlesome ’cos it’d rot your luck if you din’t have no good reason to ’sturb that roofed night. Our icons, what we carved ’n’ polished ’n’ wrote words on durin’ our lifes, was stored there after we died. Thousands of ’em there was shelfed in my time, yay, each un a Valleysman like me borned ’n’ lived ’n’ reborned since the Flotilla what bringed our ancestors got to Big I to ’scape the Fall.

First time I went inside the Icon’ry was with Pa ’n’ Adam ’n’ Jonas when I was a sevener. Ma’d got a leakin’ malady birthin’ Catkin, an’ Pa took us to pray to Sonmi to fix her, ’cos the Icon’ry was a spesh holy place an’ Sonmi was norm’ly list’nin’ there. Watery dark it was inside. Wax ’n’ teak-oil ’n’ time was its smell. The icons lived in shelfs from floor to roof, how many there was I cudn’t tell, nay, you don’t go countin’ ’em like goats, but the gone-lifes outnumber the now-lifes like leafs outnumber trees. Pa’s voice spoke in the shadows, fam’liar it was but eerie too, askin’ Sonmi to halt Ma’s dyin’ an’ let her soul stay in that body for longer, an’ in my head I prayed the same, tho’ I knowed I been marked by Old Georgie at Sloosha’s Crossin’. An’ then we heard a sort o’ roaring underneath the silence, made o’ mil’yuns o’ whisp’rin’s like the ocean, only it wasn’t the ocean, nay, it was the icons, an’ we knew Sonmi was in there list’nin’ to us.

Ma din’t die. Sonmi’s got mercy, see.

My second time in the Icon’ry was Dreamin’ Night. When fourteen notches on our icons said we was a growed Valleysman, we’d sleep ’lone in the Icon’ry an’ Sonmi’d give us a spesh dreamin’. Some girls seen who they’d marry, some boys seen a way o’ livin’, other times we’d see stuff what we’d take to Abbess for an augurin’. When we left the Icon’ry in the mornin’ we’d be men an’ women.

So gone sunset I lay under my pa’s blanky in the Icon’ry with my own uncarved icon as a pillow. Outside Bony Shore was rattlin ’n’ clackin’ an’ breakers was churnin ’n’ boilin’ an’ a whippoorwill I heard. But it weren’t no whippoorwill, nay, it was a trapdoor openin’ right by me, an’ a rope swingin’ down into the underworld sky. Climb down, Sonmi telled me, so I did, but the rope was made o’ human fingers ’n’ wrists weaved together. I looked up an’ seen fire comin’ down from the Icon’ry floor. Cut the rope, said a crookit man, but I was scared to ’cos I’d o’ fallen, yay?

Next dream, I was holdin’ my freakbirth babbit boy in Jayjo’s room. He was kickin ’n’ wrigglyin’ like he’d done that day. Quick, Zachry, said the man, cut your babbit a mouth so he can breathe! I’d got my blade in my hand so I carved my boy a smily slit, like cuttin’ cheese it was. Words frothed out, Why’d you kill me, Pa?

My last dream had me walkin’ ’long Waipio River. On the far side I seen Adam, fishin’ happ’ly! I waved but he din’t see me, so I ran to a bridge what ain’t there in wakin’ life, nay, a gold ’n’ bronze bridge. When fin’ly I got to Adam’s side tho’, I sobbed griefsome ’cos nothin’ was left but mold’rin’ bones an’ a little silver eel flippy-flappin’ in the dust.

The eel was dawnlight crackin’ under the Icon’ry door. I mem’ried the three dreams an’ walked thru the drizzly surf to Abbess without meetin’ not a body. Abbess was feedin’ her chicklin’s b’hind the school’ry. She list’ned close to my dreamin’s, then telled me they was slywise augurin’s an’ say-soed me to wait inside the school’ry while she prayed to Sonmi for their true meanin’s.

The school’ry room was touched with the holy myst’ry o’ the Civ’lize Days. Ev’ry book in the Valleys sat on them shelfs, saggy ’n’ wormy they was gettin’ but, yay, they was books an’ words o’ knowin’! A ball o’ the world there was too. If Hole World is a giant big ball, I din’t und’stand why people don’t fall off it an’ I still don’t. See, I’d not much smart in school’ry learnin’, not like Catkin, who could o’ been the next Abbess if all things happened diff’rent. School’ry windows was glass still unbusted since the Fall. The greatest of ’mazements tho’ was the clock, yay, the only workin’ clock in the Valleys an’ in hole Big I, hole Ha-Why, far as I know. When I was a schooler I was ’fraid of that tick-tockin’ spider watchin ’n’ judgin’ us. Abbess’d teached us Clock Tongue but I’d forgot it, ’cept for O’Clock an’ Half Past. I mem’ry Abbess sayin’, Civ’lize needs time, an’ if we let this clock die, time’ll die too, an’ then how can we bring back the Civ’lize Days as it was b’fore the Fall?

I watched the clock’s tickers that mornin’ too till Abbess came back from her augurin’ an’ sat ’cross from me. She telled me Old Georgie was hungerin’ for my soul, so he’d put a cuss on my dreamin’s to fog their meanin’. But Sonmi’d spoke her what the true augurin’s was. An’ you too you got to mem’ry these augurin’s well ’cos they’ll change the path o’ this yarnin’ more ’n once.

One: Hands are burnin’, let that rope be not cut.

Two: Enemy’s sleeping, let his throat be not slit.

Three: Bronze is burnin’, let that bridge be not crossed.

I ’fessed I din’t und’stand. Abbess said she din’t und’stand neither, but I’d und’stand when the true beat come, an’ she made me nail her augurin’s to my mem’ry. Then she gave me a hen’s egg for brekker, still spitty ’n’ warm from the bird, an’ showed me how to suck its yolk thru a straw.

So you want to hear about the Great Ship o’ the Prescients?

Nay, the Ship ain’t no mythy yarnin’, it was real as I am an’ you are. These here very eyes they seen it ooh, twenty times or more. The Ship’d call at Flotilla Bay twice a year, near the spring an’ autumn half ’n’ halfs when night ’n’ day got the same long. Notice it never called at no savage town, not Honokaa, not Hilo, not Leeward. An’ why? ’Cos only us Valleysmen got ’nuff Civ’lize for the Prescients, yay. They din’t want no barter with no barb’rians what thinked the Ship was a mighty white bird god! The Ship was the sky’s color so you cudn’t see it till it was jus’ offshore. It’d got no oars, nay, no sails, it din’t need wind nor currents neither, ’cos it was driven by the Smart o’ Old Uns. Long as a big islet was the Ship, high as a low hill, it carried two–three–four hundred people, a mil’yun maybe.

How did it move? Where’d its journeyin’s take it? How’d it s’vived all the flashbangin’ an’ the Fall? Well, I