(Photo by Erin Elizabeth)

Kani’s small village was the only settlement on the island. It was the last in a string of over a dozen islands near the world falls where the ocean poured over the edge and into the vast nothing. From the westward beach Kani could see the rising mists that forever hung over the falls. Most of the time the wind blew out towards the falls but not always.

She liked sitting on the beach and watching the mists rise until they formed the clouds that would circle the world’s edge. Distant rumbles marked their collisions with one another and every once in a while she saw a massive splash in the ocean where a broken piece of cloud had fallen. A moment later, the bit cloud, a massive chunk of ice, bobbed back up and floated there before tipping over the edge and vanishing from sight. Such cloud falls were exciting to watch from a safe distance but terrifying to have happening too close by. Shards of falling clouds had already claimed more than a few lives of people she knew in her sixteen years of life. Thankfully it was no one she was close to but any death in a small village was hard on the community.

“Kani,” her father’s voice rang through the jungle behind her.

“Coming,” she called back at once and got up, dusting the sand off of her legs and then heading back down the trail.

“What were you doing?” He asked when she met him on the path.

“Just watching the clouds,” she told him.

“We have the watchers in their towers for that,” he scolded her gently, “and you have chores.”

Kani shrugged and accepted the slight reprimand. She was a likely candidate to become a watcher herself in the future so it wasn’t a bad thing she spent a fair amount of time on the beach like she did. It took long years of experience to get a good feel for the motions of the clouds. If any of them swung too close to the island then everyone had to head for shelter in case of any cloud fall.

“How are the skies?” her dad asked after a few paces.

“They look calm,” Kani said. “A bit of cloud fall near the edge but nothing we need to worry about.”

“Any of it close enough to harvest?”

Kani shook her head and her dad let the subject go. He was a cloud fall harvester, so it was his job to sail out to any cloud fall near the island and tow it back. With no freshwater springs on the island, cloud fall was the only source of fresh water. The huge chunks of ice melted quickly in the tropical heat so if they weren’t collected fast enough they would melt before they could be brought back.

As soon as they reached the village, Kani and her dad split up. He had boats and sails to maintain and she had fishing nets to mend. It was easy but boring work, at least, that was her opinion on the matter. The elders and even most of the other youths she worked with didn’t seem to mind it. They could chat and gossip all they wanted as long as they got their work done. Kani was not a big fan of gossip and preferred to work in silence.

“Good to see you, Kani,” Hoeko, the lead elder for maintaining the fishing nets said as Kani took her usual spot in the circle of workers.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said without meeting the older woman’s eyes.

“Watching more clouds?” Hoeko asked.

Kani nodded as she began inspecting her net.

“I was speaking with Elder Okep this morning,” Hoeko said, referencing the island’s oldest watcher, “I asked if any of the watchers had time for an apprentice.”

Kani’s breath caught and she looked up with excitement. Becoming an apprentice watcher was much easier said than done. Some thought being a watcher was easy but it was actually one of the most difficult tasks in the entire village. It was one thing to sit and stare off into space for hours on end, it was another thing entirely to be actively paying attention to the winds, the movement of the clouds, even the shifting tides. Each watcher was responsible for calling out nearby cloud fall as well as warning of any approaching clouds. It took at least an hour for an errant cloud to pass over the island but in that time the village had to get every one and everything of value down into the shelters and that was not a quick task. The more time the village had to prepare, the better.

“Okep might think you’re still be too young, but maybe not” Hoeko gave Kani a smile. “Try to be calm and respectful if he comes to test you. He has little patience for children.”

That was an understatement. Okep famously had never married just so he wouldn’t have to deal with children. Even young adults were often too young for him to abide their company. In generations past, such a personality wouldn’t have been a huge detriment for potential watchers since any watcher could take on an apprentice but Okep insisted on training each new watcher, which meant only one apprentice at a time, and those apprentices were almost always grown adults. The flaw in that system was evident to everyone, since the watchers were all getting old and replacing them was becoming more and more important.

So, when Okep walked by the fishing nets and nodded to Kani, she hurried to put away her net and silently followed the old man as he walked towards the center of the village where his tower stood. He climbed the ladder and Kani followed where she found him sitting on a stool. A second stool was already in place and she sat down. She kept him in her peripheral vision but didn’t stare at him. She figured she was here to watch the clouds, not him. If he had anything to tell her or show her, he would.

They sat like that, watching the clouds, turning on their stools every few minutes to look out in a different direction, for the next hour or so. There was no sand or water clock up in the tower so Kani wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Eventually, Kani noticed a cloud that caught a cross breeze and began to turn away from the usual path around the edge of the world. The spray of the ocean revealed which way the winds were blowing and tracing it she could tell the cloud wasn’t likely to pass over the island.

Okep leaned forward and grabbed a piece of cord and gave it a sharp tug. Down below, a bell rang.

“One pull and the cloud fall harvesters go on alert,” he said. “Two pulls will send them out to harvest. Different bell for each direction.”

Kani knew this already but didn’t say so.

“Which cloud is most likely to fall?” he asked.

Kani pointed to the one she’d seen moving out of the line and Okep nodded.

“Where’ll it fall?” he asked.

That gave Kani reason to pause. She looked back out to the cloud, the winds, and saw where a second cross breeze intersected the first. If it caught the cloud just right, it would spin it and possibly make the trailing tail on the cloud snap and fall.

“There,” she said, pointing.

Again, Okep nodded. He was quiet for a bit longer and then spoke, asking her a question she’d never thought about before.

“Why do clouds fall?”

Was this related to being a watcher? She’d never thought about why a cloud, or part of one, might fall. They just did, sometimes. They’d crash into one another, or get too far from the edge, and then down they’d come. He went on speaking when Kani didn’t respond.

“Did you know that there are clouds that don’t fall, and are soft? You can walk right through them, they’re so thin.”

Kani had never heard of such a thing but Okep nodded knowingly.

“Some of the farthest islands get them. I’ve seen them, when I was younger. They’re wet like sea spray. Cold but not frozen. Sometimes those clouds drop water, countless drops of water like a water clock in the sky. It’s called rain. Those islands don’t harvest cloud fall since they can harvest rain by just putting out a bucket.”

It sounded like some crazy dream but, again, Kani wasn’t going to say that. She kept her eyes on the clouds. Maybe Okep was trying to distract her and keep her from paying attention to the clouds. Even as she had that thought, she saw another cloud break formation and this time it was on a direct course for the island. Without thinking, she bent down and pulled on each of the cords in order, giving the signal for the village to seek shelter.

Down below, everyone immediately got to work, opening up the hatches for their shelters and breaking down their homes and carrying them and everything else they could down beneath the ground. Okep watched the cloud for a moment and then chimed the bells twice more, signaling roughly how many hours before the cloud would be over the island.

“Go help with the nets,” he said.

Kani hesitated but then obeyed, rising from her stool and beginning the climb back down from the tower.

“Finish your work with the nests after the cloud is passed,” he called down to her. “You may join me every fifth day going forward.”

“I will see you in five days,” Kani called back up to him, not knowing what else to say.

She wanted to rush back up and thank him profusely and hug him but she knew that would be a sure way to end her apprenticeship. She settled for hugging Hoeko and thanking her before helping them fold up the nets and carrying them down into the shelter.

“I saw it was you who pulled the cords to warn us,” Hoeko commented once they were all safely below.

“I think Okep let me do it,” she replied.

“He certainly did,” Hoeko agreed, “but it says a lot that he let you. He’s thrown apprentices out of his tower for sending an incorrect signal.”

Kani didn’t know that, though thinking back she had noticed a strange number of Okep’s past apprentices had fallen out of the tower and then decided being a watcher wasn’t for them. She was suddenly a lot more nervous about her apprenticeship.

“Don’t worry,” Hoeko said, patting Kani on the head. “I wouldn’t have sent you to him if I thought you weren’t ready. He won’t throw you out of his tower.”

“I hope you’re right,” Kani said, forcing herself to smile.

“He won’t. I told him I’d throw him out of his tower if he threw you out.”

Kani laughed but Hoeko looked serious.

“I also told him I was serious and got your father to back me up on it in case I needed some help. You’ll be safe.”

Kani bowed her head in a sign of thanks and Hoeko patted her on the head again.

“I’ll miss having you in my circle,” she said, “but I think this is where you’re meant to be. Besides, we need good watchers.”

Everything shook as a piece of cloud struck the ground and loud thud, followed by several smaller ones.

“It seems your cloud has landed,” Hoeko said, though no one moved to go to the exit yet.

Just because one had landed didn’t mean that was the end of it. They’d wait a bit longer and then a few would poke their heads out to see if the sky was clear. Then an all clear signal would be sent and they could go back out and begin reassembling their village while the harvesters broke up and cleared whatever cloud fall they could.

That was life on Kani’s small island. She wondered at the strange stories Okep had told her, about soft clouds and water drops falling from the sky. What did their watchers do all day? Did they even have watchers? It sounded both incredibly mystical while at the same time boring. What would life be like without the threat of cloud fall? Not needing to be on guard, or moving the village from time to time if the cloud fall buried the old village location? Of course, then you wouldn’t need to worry about people you love dying from cloud fall, but perhaps there were other threats that just took their place. He dad once said that every island had their good and their bad, and overall she loved her island where she could watch the clouds.

But why did the clouds fall?

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