Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

Nay, I answered my en’my, an’ I stroked my blade thru his throat. Magicky ruby welled’n’pumped an’ frothed on the fleece an’ puddled on the stone floor. I wiped my blade clean on the dead’un’s shirt. I knowed I’d be payin’ for it by’n’by but, like I said a while back, in our busted world the right thing ain’t always possible.

Deeper’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will an’ if his will say-soes ‘Kill’ he’ll kill. Like fangy animals. Yay, that was the Kona. Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow. He’s angry, he’ll stop’n’think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave an’ if his will say-soes, ‘Don’t!’ he won’t, nay.

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ’morrow? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.

All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities.

What wouldn’t I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.