The Refreshing, Post 3...

3.

It was well into the evening that an announcement was made. All the major leaders of all the major countries (why would they care about the little ones at a time like this, they never usually do) wanted all the major media companies to do something “VERY IMPORTANT FOR THE WELLBEING OF THE PLANET’S INHABITANTS” (the damage limitation broadcasts again) which I’m sure pained every one of them to have to do. And what was this most important of things that required the co-operation of typically ruthless, selfish media figures? The world leaders wanted them to send cameras up through the cloud covering. It took all day to come up with the idea of trying to see what was above the cloud. Shouldn’t have mocked as it turned out. When the newspaper arrived on the mat yesterday morning, it told more of the story than the TV news had. I don’t know about the very early hours of the morning, but after remaining glued to the set (bar occasionally going to look out of the window with a cold glass of Jim Beam and water) for the majority of the night, I gave up about midnight after one too many confessions of “Now we still don’t know the whole score with this phenomenon, but please stay with us and we promise to bring you more details as we get them” and one too many weather experts taking wild guesses. All I knew waking up yesterday morning was that the cloud had appeared, and there were going to be some cameras sent up above it…oh, and it had gotten lower too. The newspaper filled in some of the gaps.
Around noon the previous day, the news companies had received reports of people in Chicago having gone to the tops of their buildings to get a closer look. Some of these people had tried poking sticks, metal poles, umbrellas and assorted other items through the cloud, which at first had no effect on either the cloud or any of the poking devices. eventually these people found themselves holding their sticks and rods above the cloud for more than a second, and it was only then that things started to happen. One man left his snooker cue in the cloud for three seconds before he felt a tug on the end like a bite whilst fishing. When he pulled the cue back out at this point, the end was missing. It wasn’t snapped or splintered, just perfectly cut, as if it had been sawn off. So, naturally people started poking their sticks into the cloud and leaving them there for three seconds until they too felt that tug. When a heavy metal scaffold support that took two men to lift came down without it’s end, people thought it best to report these happenings.
The presence of TV cameras makes people do crazy things sometimes. Further proof lies in the incident on top of that building in Chicago when the news team got up there, and when the reporter and her camera crew started recording some talking heads for the next bulletin. She spoke to a few of the people who had seen the poles being poked into the cloud, and of course a few of the people who had done the poking. In the midst of all this, when an elderly guy was saying how it had taken him forever to get up the stairs to the roof, but that it had been worth it to see the “darndest sight” of his life, some idiot decided to get in the shot, climb up on his friend’s shoulders and stick his hand and arm up into the cloud. They showed the footage later on when the hysteria was reaching its peak, and you could actually see the guy being physically tugged by the arm after three seconds, before falling off his friend’s shoulders into a heap on the floor, clutching his arm. He wasn’t screaming. He had turned as white as a sheet, but he wasn’t screaming. He was lying in a foetal position on the floor, eyes bulging, staring at his wrist. The look on his face was one of pure terror, and as the cameraman and soundman started to close in on him, the sound he was making became more audible, and was every bit as unpleasant as the look on his face. It sounded as though he had fallen into an icy lake; he was struggling to breathe and made the noise of someone shivering, only without shivering. He was rocking back and forth a little on the ground, but as far as shivering goes, there was none, he was still otherwise. He finally caught his breath and started muttering incoherently, hand clutched even tighter to him as the crowd convened around him. Eventually a couple of the people in the crowd managed to steady him and prise his arm away from his chest. At that moment, the cameraman dropped his camera out of shock (and I’m guessing they were understanding enough not to try to charge him for breakages). The last image shot on the camera, and the last we saw before the static took over was that of a stump, about a third of the way up his arm, where his hand and wrist had been, and appearing to have been neatly, perfectly sliced off. But, there was no blood, even though the bone, muscle, tissue and so on were there for all to see. His arm just came to a stop, like the rest of it had somehow become invisible, or in an even more (until any of this business started) far-fetched situation, had simply disappeared. Disappearing arms and hands was bad, but it got much, much worse.