Wednesday, January 21, 2015

I'm standing outside a red brick building on a cloudy day, photographing the sky. Something isn't right.

I alternate between using my camera and my phone, because I can't make sense of what I'm seeing in the photographs: The clouds seem to drift from the horizon, then curl back at a higher altitude like a wave. There are things on the underside of the clouds. Squares, of some kind.

I enlarge the images on my phone, and see that they're tents - canvas squares anchored down. Others are beds, upside down, and high above me - anchored to the clouds.

A rising panic swells inside me. I can't make sense of this. I rush inside to a computer, and open up a memory card on screen. Something is wrong - something or someone doesn't want these images viewed or spread: the icons and filenames of each photograph begin of dissolve into multicolored static. I try to disconnect the drive from the computer, but the drive has smoke pouring out of it already.

Something is living in the clouds, and doesn't want to be found.