Cloud Watchers

Roland Langdale Mark

Description

In the future, the world is in peril. Global warming has taken its toll, deforestation has wiped out too many forests and there's worse yet to come. Earth is on its last legs, and the Cloud Watchers of old have disappeared into legacy. Deep in the forest, two environmentally conscious runaways live off grid to do their bit to save the planet. Up in theclouds, the floating airship The Cloud Lab watches over the Earth as best they can. A steamship captain, an old CloudWatcher, workers in Kew Gardens, and more all watch and wonder what will be the final straw that tips the Earth intochaos.When the Anti-Environmental League forms, an unexpected revolt sets events into motion that cannot be undone.Difficult challenges arise that might just be the planet's ultimate downfall - unless the world's population can be roused tosave itself.

Sujets

• Children's

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838598044
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Mark Roland Langdale


The moral right of the author has been asserted.


Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Cover design by Charlotte Eliza Walshe

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ISBN 978 1838598 044

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

In memory of my friend Carol Curry



Dedicated to Charlotte, Esther & Rachel, Iain, Lindsey, Verne, Jackie, Rachel, Fraser, Briony, Jo, Rosie, Sophie and Mercedes, ‘friends of the earth’.

‘No one is too small to make a difference’
– Greta Thunberg
Contents
Prologue
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Arcadia epilogue
Eden epilogue
Earth epilogue
Prologue
Back in 2021 there was a group of people who lived in England’s green and pleasant land known as ‘the Cloud Watchers’. In some quarters, Middle-earth England was still the land referred to as Arcadia. These people came from all walks of life: some from the country, some from the town and some from the city. When in the pursuit of watching the clouds it was an unwritten rule that complete silence be observed, almost as if the Cloud Watchers imagined they were standing in a vast library. Whistling or signing was also frowned upon, which meant the Cloud Watchers always let the dawn chorus perform the Nature Overture before taking their rightful place beneath the clouds.
Now, this gentle pursuit, one that did not harm nature and did not cost the earth – akin to meditation or the ancient art of tai chi, which some compared it to – could go on for hours. However, at no time did you see a Cloud Watcher drink from a plastic bottle that contained water, not even if on the side of that plastic bottle the label read Cloud Water – Direct from the Clouds. The Cloud Watchers only had to wait for the cloud to open, then open their mouths and they could drink in as much water as they wanted, and it was dirt-cheap – free, in fact. When the bird of paradise was first discovered in Papua New Guinea, explorers were told by the local people that the bird lived in the sky and drank from the clouds. The bird was always depicted in old books written by naturalists as having no legs or feet, just wings.
In the minds of Cloud Watchers, they were still living in a small part of paradise, a paradise that had been lost to others in the world, due to climate change and deforestation. For them it was time to explore new ways of living, which in part meant a return to the old ways: those of the Geographical Society, the Village Green Preservation Society and the Flat Earth Society. These new ways, however, did not discard all of the modern wonders: the cloud in cyberspace still had an important role to play in spreading the green message. This message was a simple one: clean up your own backyard so the air and water are clean; even if you do not believe in climate change, surely that was something we all wanted and something worth fighting for. A green village on a local scale which would spread until the world was truly a global village and we all became members of the World Global Village Society.
In truth, most people in the circle of Cloud Watchers never spoke to one another outside the circle. A simple nod of the head or smile or occasionally a wink was the most that ever passed between the Cloud Watchers, as if they knew something most other people did not. It was almost as if they were in a trance or were a group of Buddhists high in the mountains, where the air and the water were as pure as their thoughts. When the Cloud Watchers first entered the field and looked up at the clouds their minds tended to wander and wonder about every subject under the sun, stars and moon above. They saw pictures in the clouds as if it were an art gallery, as clouds were nothing if not artistic and often brought poets to wax lyrical about them. As the clouds passed by, the mind of the Cloud Watcher went blank as a calmness came upon them of perfect tranquillity of mind, body and spirit. Most of the Cloud Watchers remained as still as a millpond, while others swayed gently in the breeze as if they were a flower or a young tree. When the Cloud Watchers eventually left this magical and spiritual place they felt refreshed, regenerated and rejuvenated, as if they had been standing under a waterfall high up in the Alps.
It wasn’t long before people started to watch the Cloud Watchers, wondering what on earth they were doing. These people were labelled ‘the Watchers’ by the media, who felt the need to stick a label on anything whether it moved or not. The Watchers wondered if the Cloud Watchers were a sort of religious cult or perhaps a cult who believed that an alien race in flying saucers were going to come out of the clouds and whisk them off to another planet, one that was in a much better state than the one they were on: a planet B. Or perhaps they were a group of Native Americans who believed they could make it rain simply by standing under the clouds and willing them to release their precious cargo upon the sacred earth, which in some places due to global warming was as dry as the Gobi Desert.
The Watchers (as they became known) of the Cloud Watchers poured scorn upon them, throwing insults. Some even threw rotten vegetables or fruit at them as people had done in olden times in the Globe Theatre, when those in the pit threw rotten vegetables and fruit at the actors when they gave a bad performance. Despite this, the Cloud Watchers did not respond, choosing to remain silent, turning the other cheek or showing the contempt they felt these people deserved. Some of the watchers became even more infuriated by this silence, some turning to violence so that the police had to be called to protect the cloud watchers. Others became so fascinated and curious as to what they might be missing out on that they eventually plucked up the courage to join the Cloud Watchers despite the scorn they knew they would have to endure.
Many stories were written about the Cloud Watchers as to why they did what they did. One story that was circulating on the cloud in cyberspace was that there was a man named the Cloud Alchemist who could make a cloud appear in a cloudless sky out of thin air as if he were a magician or a sorcerer. Another story was that the clouds had the power to suck children up and they would never be seen again, whisked away to some strange land, probably Cloud Cuckoo Land; the cloud became like a magic carpet: a cloud carpet! The media and social media became obsessed by the Cloud Watchers, all wanting to solve the mystery as to what made these people tick. The media was desperate to interview the individual members of the Cloud Watchers Circle to get them to tell their stories. The story of the Cloud Watchers had become a human-interest story. Cameras from television companies all over the world swarmed over the site. Even the International Space Station started to watch them from space, as did the New Space Lab . Google Earth, as always, was one step ahead of everybody else as it had been watching the group from day one. Google Earth made it its business to keep an eye on everybody: data was big business; the time was not far off when names would be a thing of the past as we would all be ‘living by numbers’.
The Cloud Watchers became minor celebrities. Some said this was indeed a magic circle, as if the Cloud Watchers were watching the clouds from the circle inside Stonehenge. However, not one member of the circle broke their secret vow, or the one the press imagined they had made, to talk about their reasons for standing in a field in all weathers twelve months of the year simply to watch clouds pass by. Of course, the weather wasn’t always conducive to cloud-watching; after all, you can’t watch clouds if there aren’t any in the sky to watch. You also can’t watch clouds if the sky is covered in one giant cloud blanket.
If the Cloud Watchers had a hidden agenda it was to show that life did not have to be lived at a breakneck speed; a better way was to stop and smell the roses and watch the clouds pass by. You could learn a lot from nature if you took the time to learn. Mother Nature was a teacher; she was trying to teach us a lesson, a valuable lesson. She was not preaching; she just wanted us to realise what we might lose if we did not take time out.
The Cloud Watchers could see exactly which way the wind was blowing regarding climate change even if others still had their heads stuck in the clouds. They at least had seen the writing on the wall – or perhaps in the clouds, as the Native American