The Cloud Bus

Naturally, you won’t believe me. Many trips to the doctor have taught me, it is foolhardy for the extraordinary to assume the ordinary will accept that it exists. Nobody but the most brainless creature thinks itself ordinary or mundane. Most people like to think of themselves as the limit. The most clever you can be without being a book botherer, the most exciting you can be without jumping off tall things (tall things – back to those later) or the most unique you can be without painting yourself mauve and standing at bus stops asking people what time the cloud bus arrives. I, as you hopefully have gathered, am not part of Most People. I am the sort of person that bothers books so much she has several restraining orders in place against her, who has waited for the cloud bus many a dreary Sunday afternoon only to end up wet and late, and who does not so much jump off tall things as watch them have fights and write stories about it.

It was dawn. I was sitting at the top of Mount Fuji - just chilling, soaking up the ambience (which means trying to shield my Nintendo DS with my left hand from the awakening sun whilst stabbing zombies with my stylus in my right.) You may be wondering what I was doing atop Mount Fuji of a Monday morn. Let’s just say that the cloud bus takes ages and telepathically communicated destinations are sometimes misinterpreted. So there I was, not really dressed for Japanese summer weather, waiting for the next bus, indulging in a bit of the genius box. The scenery, though I wasn’t exactly scrutinising it on account of my epic gamage, was obviously breath-taking. Rich greens and earthy colours, accents of cherry blossom pink as far as the eye could see, temples rising out of the trees, rivers flowing below, flocks of cranes soaring above. You know, the whole Japanese nine yards. It was beautiful, truly awe-inspiring in that wind-in-my-hair, tears-in-my-eyes, shot-at-the-end-of-the-anime-trailer kind of way. Which is a way I’m fond of, so I looked up from my game, folded the DS like a plastic hot dog bun, and looked out at the horizon. At least I had intended to look out at the horizon. Unfortunately a giant face the size of Big Ben, holding its breath, was blocking my view.

“Oi!” says me, “Mind out, I’m trying to stare off at the horizon, like in the catalogues."

Now here’s a little piece of advice: if a giant with a face as big as Big Ben is holding her breath only a hundred yards away from you – don’t startle her.

The giant’s breath, which sent me tumbling boots over beret, smelled of coconuts, sea salt and warm skin and felt, despite its power, like being knocked down by a summer breeze. I picked myself up off the grass, dusted myself off and looked up at the face above me. It was a brown, serene, freckled face with dark dreadlocks tinged summer blonde tumbling about it. Huge whiskey coloured eyes, full brown lips that twisted up into a bemused smile when not in motion and the cutest ten foot nose I have ever seen.

“Hiya,” I said to her with a friendly grin, “I’m the Narrator. Who might you be, if I’m permitted to ask without risking a snaffling?”

She threw back her head and laughed a very good-natured and genuine laugh. I’ve tried since to incorporate her style into my own laugh, but I’m told it comes across a bit Father Christmas-esque.

“I am Paradise.” she said, which you have to admit is a sexy thing to come out with in a husky Haitian voice. I fell in love with her instantly.

“Pleased to meet you, Paradise.” I said bashfully, my face blushing like a hentai cover girl’s.

“You’d better get to safety, tiny girl, storm’s comin’.”

“Is that like a metaphorical storm?” Don’t be too harsh on me, I know with hindsight I seem a bit slow on the uptake but I was trying to hold a conversation with the giant embodiment of a concept.

“No, my little fairy. I meant that Storm is coming.”

“Ah, like you’re Paradise and she’s Storm? I get it.” I walked towards her and sat down on a rock, “You don’t have to worry about me. I know I don’t look like it but shit like this happens to me all the time.”

‘All the time’ may have been stretching it a little but I was familiar with the weird and wonderful and I wanted to stick around with the prettiest giant face I ever did see. Besides, I had to wait for the cloud bus, which would surely be delayed if there was to be a storm.

“Well, her name is not really Storm, they call her many names. Destruction or Bringer of Chaos or She of the Depths. She is my sister and I call her Storm. She is a terrible creature who commands the skies and the seas, a creature who knows only destruction and chaos.”

“I’ve got my brolly.” I produced a clear plastic umbrella from my bag and held it up.

Paradise stepped away from the mountain’s edge and looked up at the sky. It was starting to grey and the air was turning cool. I could now behold the awesome entirety of her body. Far below, I could see her bare feet, the size of battleships. Her legs, mostly hidden by a pretty red and gold sarong, looked strong and powerful, muscular thighs giving way to voluptuous hips, a comparatively slender waist and very large breasts concealed by a bikini made of huge shells about as big as me. I didn’t even want to know what left those behind or what remote depth we are yet to discover they came from. She wore a necklace of hollowed palm trees on a string of seaweed with empty coconut shells, fish bones and palm leaves hanging from it like tiny charms. The wind suddenly picked up and fist-sized raindrops began to fall. I hastily put up my umbrella.

“I hope that will be enough, my little friend,” said Paradise the giant, ” because she is here.”

Thunder peeled through the air, like a god’s tummy rumbling, and a moment later lightning shot through the sky, not just one bolt but many. I huddled up under the plastic umbrella, gawking at the lights piercing the clouds, hoping none of them was my damn bus. The lightning flashed hard and my eyes saw nothing but white. As I blinked to get my vision back I could see a slash across the sky, beyond which was blackness. From this blackness tumbled something like dripping ink. I squinted as it came ever closer and edited my metaphors – no not ink, tentacles! No, seaweed! No – hair. Destruction’s hair (I feel that as the Narrator it is my job to make sure all of the imagery and themes are perfectly illustrated - Destruction is kinda the opposite of Paradise) fell from the sky and formed a tornado in front of Paradise. In this tornado, like Dorothy’s, I could see things it had picked up along the way; boats, sea creatures, a house with unimpressed people still in it banging on the windows, driftwood, bicycles. The tornado slowly began to stop turning until it was a wall of wet black hair with everything stuck in it. Destruction tossed her hair back and splashed me, Paradise and Mount Fuji with green, slimy water. And big snails, which I have to say I wasn’t massively keen on.

“Greetings, frivolous one.” rasped Destruction, in an ancient Japanese accent, a harsh yet devilishly playful tone to her voice.

“Yes, greetings, dreaded one.” Paradise looked serious now, her huge beautiful brow furrowed.

“At dawn, it was said, was it not?” Destruction said, tossing a giant strand of hair from her pale face, “At dawn, in the age of the Word, two shall meet at dawn, on this sacred ground, and a new world shall be born upon the grave of one -“

“Or the other.” Paradise interrupted her, altering her stance, which had been casual, to that of a fighter – feet apart, shoulders square.

“I have waited for this day.” Destruction licked her purple lips and grinned, “I have hoped for this day.”

“Why hope to die?” Paradise said.

As the fight between the two giant women began, I looked round and saw that quite an audience was forming. Foxes and monkeys and pandas (oh my!) sat in a row, their eyes wide and expectant, as though the BBFC rating screen had just been on – Paradise vs Destruction, rated fifteen. It was raining more steadily now and the animals were all getting very wet, their fur matted, droplets falling from their noses. At the end of the row, a fox with many tails was shivering.

“Psst,” I whispered over the roar of the fight and the rain, “Kitsune. Come under my brolly.”

Well, I couldn’t let a god sit in the freezing cold, could I? Again, in hindsight, I probably should have addressed her with more reverence but faced with similar circumstances, you’d be surprised what you might do.

With all the animals struggling to stay under my designed-for-one-person umbrella, it was difficult to pay proper attention to the world-changing events before me. Sandwiched between two pandas, I also had a monkey on each shoulder, foxes, vixens and even a couple of adorable pups at my feet and the Kitsune, magnificently red, perched on my knee. I couldn’t really see on account of her tails and sneezed when the white furry tips tickled my nose. It felt pretty good to be a lifeline to this band of creatures, their saviour in blue mary janes, but I drew the line when a bird tried to flap its way under. Birds fly through the rain all the time and it really was just taking the piss.

It was Paradise who threw the first punch. Swinging her colossal fist through the air she looked like a pro. I wondered if this was a regular occurance - for gods or elementals or whatever these giant powerful women were. Fisticuffs at dawn. Certainly not how they portrayed it on Charmed. The punch landed, loud and unforgiving, on Destruction’s jaw. Oily blood slithered insidiously from her left nostril, shimmering. She cackled, eyes swimming with rage like two vast black lagoons - cliché alert, but I think you;ll agree that the water imagery really applies here.

Although I was routing for the lovely Paradise I had to admit that her sister was really more my traditional type: disgustingly beautiful, deathly pale, she was ghost, banshee and vampiress all rolled into one. Complete with black veins beneath her translucent skin and heavy, tangled black hair falling about a visciously beautiful face. She wore a dark blue kimono embroidered in sea green with a scene depicting a horrifyingly large octopus tearing apart a ship. She was scary and powerful and probably evil but she didn’t half look cool.

“Not evil.” The fox god in my lap corrected my mistake, looking up into my face with her narrow foxy eyes.

“Hey! Are you eavedropping in my mind?”

“I hear your thoughts, yes.”

I shivered. “That’s creepy.” I gave her an excited grin, “Wish I could do it!”

“Western girl, this is not good versus evil. It is not Lord of the Rings. It is paradise facing destruction, perfection facing ruination. Dream facing reality - do you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it but - you’re referencing Lord of the Rings? The book or the film?”

She showed her sharp little teeth and made a sound. It was a growl but I prefer to interpret it as a good natured laugh.

The fight continued. Destruction caused Paradise to stumble with a nice bone crunching roundhouse to the face. Paradise countered with a roar from her beautiful mouth, spraying her sister with golden sand. The sand turned wet and brown when it hit her body and hair, covering her in mud. She began to spin again, round and round (like a record, baby.) The mud flew off and hit the trees, hit my umbrella and gave one of the pandas, who was returning from answering the call of nature, a nice cow print design on her furry face.

“Care to predict the outcome?” The Fox’s tiny black eyes stared up at me from her furry little visage. That means face. It’s like Posh for face. And by Posh I mean French.

What could I say? Two giant women, complete with martial arts skills, super powers and opposing ideologies - is this the kind of event I’m equipped to forecast? Then again I did correctly guess the winner of the Grand National based upon nothing but the horse’s super cool name, so perhaps I’m just spooky like that.

“Well, Paradise may be lovely but I have seen enough to know that destruction always wins.”

And the Fox bowed her head as the sky darkened and a grey, frightening light emanated from the mouth of Destruction, together with the sound of every bomb, every flood, every crash, every ending. A shower of lightning bolts crashed down from above, flying through the air like glowing yellow javlins, and pierced the body of Paradise like a voodoo doll. Golden sand poured from her wounds and her voice was small and sad when she said,

“So it is done.”

I never did catch that Cloud Bus I was waiting for. It never came. Nothing ever came or went or was or is anymore. I did not awake in a starry blackness, I did not awake in a bleak nothingness. I saw neither god nor bhuddha nor dead celebrities eating cloud sushi. I arrived on the mountain by accident and, like every other sad, ordinary speck of humanity on Earth, I was wiped out by the triumph of Destruction. But I spoke with Paradise and a Fox god and was present at the end of the world. If that doesn’t make me extraordinary, I don’t know what does.

The End