The Giant Cloud

A novel in twenty episodes

By Luís Carmelo

(transl. Bernardo Palmeirim)

SECOND EPISODE

(The night had brought him visions...)

It is morning anew. Edmundo comes down to the lobby and does not even notice the tall and glazed crystal jar, which looks like a devouring flame ready to take on the French window looking out on the swimming pool.

The night had brought him visions of rails on steep slopes and rivers resting on long Amazon stares, while muted hollow voices went on through platforms and, across that deep thunder, among creeping ivy, Edmundo continued to probe the hotel lights, that saraband of balconies and leafage that would only show signs of life at late hours, with the permission of the Mediterranean breeze.

Before moving into the breakfast room, Edmundo had managed to still his abysses, until he stumbled upon the front page about the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

He threw himself on the couch, bereft of the open elevator door before him.

Albe comes out of the shower, dries off and puts on her white columbine pajamas, imagining two garlands on her head and a red thornless rose outlining her lips.

She smiles towards the balcony and peeks through the long drapes at the too-perfect blue of a sea faking sleepiness.

There are open palm trees and a parrot, and hours of drowsiness mixed with the sudden apparition of whitish houses Albe looks round, spinning in a circle, dances, and veers on giddiness until catches herself in a laugh.

(Next episode of The Giant Cloud: “Secrets and storms are exchanged, and behind them, the jar remains crystalline, tall and glazed…”)

Continues

(see here the portuguese updated version)