[ enlightning ]
There’s a stillness in the summer air. The lake has no movement. It’s smooth as glass and looks as if you could walk right across the reflective sheet, mirroring the large puffy clouds above. The oasis is surrounded by dense untamed brush, large towering trees, and snow-capped mountains that peak over the woodland below, cradling it all in its own world. Icarus is 11 now, old enough to adventure through the valley alone. He’s small for his age, but his ambitious energy makes up for his physical appearance. He bites his lip, surveying the area, as he walks along the trail, looking for the right path to the lake on this warmer than usual day.
Icarus comes to the perfect entrance, a clear downhill path that turns off from the main trail about 100 yards from the edge of the clear, blue lagoon. He anxiously pulls off his tattered white T-shirt, over worn tennis shoes, and socks. He sets his eye on the lake entrance, and runs down the path as fast as he can. A dust trail builds behind him as he gets closer to the lake. As he comes to the edge, he takes one last catapult leap from a rock near the edge to launch him. Mid-air, he takes one last gulp of air and then whoosh, splashes down into the cooling waters.
He takes his first step in the new environment, where the motionless water is interrupted from its sleep. He pushes off the ground returning to the surface and floats further from the shore, bouncing along between the surface and the floor of the lake. It’s the closest one can feel to flying and he’s getting acquainted with his new abilities. He dives below the surface again, feeling the weightlessness of his body in the water, twisting and turning, moving in ways his body could never achieve with the gravity above water. It’s a joyous feeling — total heaven.
A dozen miles above the serene mountain lake, located in the overcast clouds, a group of legnas hang out near the edge of a cloud, barely moving over the world on this quiet day. A legna is a being that humans are not capable of seeing. They are made of pure energy. Earth creatures don’t have the ability to see energy unless it is transformed into something else like fire or light. But just because people can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Legnas live in a cloud city and have all the same things as humans have, just in the cloud version of it. Everything there is made of energy and is moldable in ways humans could never imagine. Their world is constantly moving and changing. But legnas like to stick close to other legnas that are similar to themselves, so within the cloud community there are diverse groups of legnas. They rarely intermingle with each other. They have elected leaders, who work to keep the peace between the communities.
As the clouds move across the Earth, the bustling movement in the city begins to intensify as the energy grows. The more energy the cloud city absorbs, the faster the metropolis evolves and the more frenetic the beings become. When the electrical charges build up too much within the city, energy tensions rise between the groups. Those pressures have to be discharged from their society to keep the peace. The elected officials keep track of the absorption of the energy through a monitoring meter that everyone can see. Once the energy reaches high levels, the legnas all participate in an activity to release the community of its excess energy. They set aside a day to go on strike, which happens every few weeks. Today is a strike day. The legnas are quickly preparing for their strikes so the whole city is in constant motion. It’s a flurry of activity everywhere.
To join the strike, legnas have to train and are only allowed when they are absolutely ready, since it can be a very intense experience. The legnas who are deemed ready get to join in the society’s way of releasing these charged particles back to the Earth. The strike itself is a very exhilarating bungee jumping experience, as they have to descend down to Earth in a quick second and drop the excess energy. They pick a target and strike things on Earth to keep the balance and harmony in their cloud world.
Because legnas are not born of parents, they are raised in a school with caregivers and teachers from the various representative cloud communities. They do not join a community until they go on their first strike. It’s in that moment during the strike where they find out what community they belong to, though learning about all the communities is part of their upbringing. Each legna doesn’t know what community they will join until that split second moment they make their first strike and arrive back in the cloud city with this new knowledge and new color to their once colorless bodies. The communities are made up of legnas who strike similar things.
The target they strike not only places them in their community, but it also begins the development of their personalities. It’s worth noting that all legnas are colorless until they strike. After they strike, they begin to develop a hue that grows deeper the more they strike. So the first strike only gives a very light hint of that color, but more mature legnas, who have struck the surface of the Earth thousands of times, have developed intense colors and textures. Each community is defined by its color, with a wide range of that color represented by its legnas.
The cloud city is divided into six groups of legnas that represent the things they strike — all natural elements of the Earth. The red community strikes metal, orange strikes soil, yellow strikes sand, green strikes wood, blue strikes water, and purple strikes rock. The thing about the strikes is that when the legnas strike something, they get the rush of whatever they strike and get to feel what it is they are striking. Kind of like tasting food or a feeling. So it is this new sensory experience they get out of it and describe it to each other.
Each community naturally evolves their culture based on their color and the things they strike. The reds are the most feared in the community. Reds are very temperamental and tend to anger quickly. They are the traditionalists of cloud city and don’t like change. Oranges are extremely level headed and very organized. They are over-communicative, very hard workers, and are always planning something. Oranges run most of the businesses. Yellows are neurotic and can’t keep anything together. Their community is chaotic and they are always changing their minds. The greens are the hippies of the cloud city. They can be very philosophical and love to ponder their existence. The blues just go with the flow. Lazily spending their days doing recreational things, they rarely accomplish anything, but are always up for a good time. Last but certainly not least, the cloud city has the purple community. They are always focused on looking the best they possibly can. They are the divas and like grand things. They think everyone wants to be them.
Theia preps for her first strike day. She has been planning for this day her entire life and while the excitement of finally figuring out what color her hue will be, Theia has some anxiety about the change. She knows these last few moments will be the last time she can be a part of the greater community before starting to develop certain characteristics that will box her into one of the subsets of the cloud city. She loves them all equally and can’t imagine ever having to choose just one, but she knows that choice will be made for her today when she makes her first strike. It’s a lot to take in.
The dormitory room is nearly packed up. So many years were spent here and she has many memories of the other legnas she grew up with, especially her best friend Atlas. Like Theia, Atlas is also nervous about today since he will be making his first strike as well. They will both miss their strike guides, who prepared them for this day, the teachers that helped them understand the world, and the caregivers that raised them. Atlas comes to Theia’s room and is as just as wound up from the excess energy in the city as she is. Colorless for the last time, they exchange a few memories and head to the drop zone where the rest of the community is gearing up to strike.
On the way, Theia and Atlas notice how intense the city is. Buildings are swaying, the streets are vibrating, and everyone seems on edge. Time seems like it is going faster since everything is moving. The legnas are all irritable. The excess energy makes them combative and arguments between legnas of different communities are starting to break out as they walk to the drop zone. It just seems like everyone is unhappy and no one can get along. Theia and Atlas are feeling it, too, but they are too young to absorb as much energy as other legnas, who need to strike soon before they get too out of hand and once again restore peace in the city.
The drop zone Theia and Atlas have been assigned to is on the same side of the city as their dwelling so it doesn’t take them long to get there. It’s the closest they have ever been to the edge of cloud city and the view over the edge is spectacular and like nothing they’ve ever seen before. They learned about all the components of the strike items, but seeing the textures below gives them goosebumps. Their orange strike guide Levin joins them and preps them for their drop. In order to bring the excess energy down to Earth, they have to power up on a platform, taking in large amounts of the excess energy, and then jump. Theia tells Atlas he can go first since she is still trying to hold on to these last few moments. They hug one last time as colorless energy beings and then the guide helps Atlas over to the power up platform. Atlas powers up and is trembling from the amount of energy he is carrying. It’s almost too much to handle for a first timer. As he gives Theia one last look and nod, Levin opens the drop zone portal and he is gone. Theia steps up next, powers up, and drops as well.
Below, Icarus comes up for air and raindrops are beginning to make ripples on the lake surface. A gust of wind brushes past him and with it lightning strikes not too far from the lake, followed by a large rumble of thunder. He begins to make his way toward the shore, quickly peddling his way from the center of the lake. As he frantically makes his way to the shore, the wind begins to blow the water across the lake and the sky begins to drop giant bombs of water everywhere. He’s getting nervous as he knows how dangerous it is to be swimming with lightning strikes so he swims faster and faster. Icarus finally reaches a point where he can touch the ground. He moves quickly pushing the water to help him propel forward. He reaches the edge of the lake and takes one step up on the rock and boom.
Then with a loud instant crack of the heavens touching the Earth, he is struck by lightning. His body falls back in the shallow water, facing the sky, motionless.
Levin the strike guide watches as first Atlas and then Theia reemerge through the cloud floor into the recovery room from the strikes. It takes a few moments for them to regain themselves. Levin reassures them that everything is going to be alright. “Just hang tight for a few moments. Your colors will begin to come into focus within a few minutes,” Levin says.
“Colors?” Icarus, the boy from the lake, blurts out loudly, but his voice comes out of Theia’s mouth. Theia quickly realizes her energy has doubled and has somehow fused together with someone else’s. “Wait a minute, who said that?” Theia yells. Atlas, who is just waking up in a gorgeous pastel red color, looks at Theia with confusion. Icarus questions, “Where am I? What is this place?” He begins to become manic, realizing he is not at the lake, and if he was taken to the emergency room, then this is the weirdest one he’s ever seen. Theia/Icarus look down at their body and scream. Icarus is screaming because he is a ball of energy and Theia is screaming because she is not colorless anymore, but she is also not a color. She is just plain white. Since there are two voices coming out of Theia, Levin is getting extremely nervous. Atlas looks at him in disbelief as well.
Levin decides to try to figure out what is going on. “Hi, I am Levin, your strike guide.” Theia and Icarus respond back at the same time, “Who are you?” and “I know who you are.” Levin quickly pulls back a cloud curtain to separate them from the rest of the recovery area where other strike guides are welcoming back their first time legnas back from the jumps. They are celebrating their true colors. It’s joyous. Levin turns back to his situation and pleads, “Look, I don’t know what happened but everything is going to be alright. We just need to get you to the… you know what… come with me. You, too, Atlas.”
Levin, pulls Theia/Icarus and Atlas down a corridor to the back of the recovery room building. As they are heading through the building, Icarus is completely lost and is asking a lot of questions. Theia is having a total identity crisis since she has no color. Atlas and Levin are also trying to figure out what is happening. They have never seen a white legna before.
Levin carefully leads them to his cloud apartment, trying to cover Theia/Icarus as other legnas move past them. He pushes them behind things and stealthily navigates the city on their way to the apartment. Once inside, Levin explains to Icarus everything he can about the cloud city, but nothing seems to make sense to him. Theia and Icarus keep trying to speak at the same time and it’s making things confusing so he has to ask them questions separately by using their names. Theia explains that she was aiming for the water because once she saw it, she was immediately drawn to it, but she missed and hit Icarus when he moved at the same time.
They have no idea what to do and so Levin convinces them to stay at his apartment for the night and they can figure things out in the morning. Theia is overwhelmed because she knows being a white legna, she will have no sense of belonging in the cloud city. She will be an outcast. Before they go to sleep, they say goodbye to Atlas, who has to move into the red part of the city to begin his journey there. Upon saying goodbye, Theia notices there is something different about Atlas. The strike has changed him now that he has color. They are sad to see him leave but know he has to take his place in the cloud society.
Atlas arrives at the red community common house and meets an old red named Moros. Within the arrival room, Moros asks him what took so long to arrive. Atlas stumbles over his words a bit, but eventually reveals what happened to Theia. He’s very nervous about his first impression and he just blurts out the whole story. Moros just listens like nothing is wrong, assigns Atlas to his quarters, gives him his orientation information, and then sends him on his way. Moros thinks he has an opportunity with this information that could finally get him an opportunity to join the elected leaders in Cloud City. Once Atlas is on his way, Moros calls his red representative and tells them all about the new, white legna that was discovered. The representative tells Moros that he is a hero for bringing this information forward and they will look into it.
The next day, the cloud city outside is stable again since the energy levels have been reduced. It’s business as usual. Icarus/Theia awake and are able to have a deeper conversation about who they are. She notices he has a spirit that matches her own. Her empathy for him is beginning to grow. She’s never felt this way before. Talking to him, she is able to experience him and his world, and how he perceives it. She sees everything differently now. Theia is overwhelmed with all this information, but no one else has struck a human (or anything with consciousness before) so she is alone in her experience. He explains to Theia about his family and his world. Since she is connected to him, when he talks about it, she is experiencing all his sensations and feelings and sights and sounds. The boy has a deep love for nature and being outside and experiencing the water, rocks, trees, and soil. He is amazed by it all. Theia wonders if it is possible to have a love of all these things and not be isolated to just one.
Levin walks in to see Icarus and Theia having a conversation within one body and can’t believe this is still happening. It’s absolutely insane. He was hoping yesterday was just some sort of a dream, but it is real and is playing out right in front of him. He has an idea. Levin tells them that they just need a few weeks to lay low and hopefully the next strike day, Theia can strike and return Icarus to his body, but they will need to plan it very carefully so she can strike in just the right spot.
Over the next few days, Theia and Icarus try to stay on the down low in Levin’s apartment, but they are getting antsy, especially as excess energy builds in the city again. Since Theia doesn’t have a type and her color is wanting to experience everything, she ends up having the idea that maybe all the legnas should be more diverse and experience other things to strike and stop living in their own bubbles, seeing the world through Icarus’s wide-ranging point of view. She discusses with Icarus, and he agrees to help her understand, mostly because it’s helping him keep his mind off the fact that he doesn’t have a body anymore and he doesn’t really have a choice being stuck with her. While Levin is away at work, Theia and Icarus start to document all their ideas.
One day while Levin is away, there is a knock at the door. It is the cloud city investigatory team, a motley group of detectives. Theia and Icarus are terrified of what would happen if they see them so they try to pretend like no one is home, but the team eventually knocks down the cloud door and enters Levin’s apartment. Theia and Icarus hide, but they are caught. The team is stunned at Theia’s white energy body. They force her to go with them to the government building. Once there, they are questioned and put in a holding cell.
Levin comes home later and finds his apartment empty. Where could they have gone? He waits for them to come back, growing more anxious. He searches for clues around his apartment and finds the document Theia and Icarus were putting together. It’s a beautiful point of view and nothing he has ever read before. It opens his mind to new possibilities. He wonders if others might feel the same. Levin decides to circulate their thoughts via the cloud messenger board to the other legnas. He thinks maybe if he shares their story, other legnas will come forward with information about their whereabouts. Meanwhile, people are reading his post and are beginning to react.
The circulation of Theia’s concepts begin to cause everyone to talk with each other, first out of pure curiosity, but then questioning their entire existence and why they do the things they do. Before, it was peaceful. Peaceful but separated. Now, all the separation flaws have been pointed out within the city. The legnas slowly all start doing things differently and showing up in places they shouldn’t be, but not everyone is happy about it. They begin to question everything they do and it disrupts the social process.
The leaders see this and how it is upsetting their whole system. They track down Levin and bring him to the government building as well, where he is charged with ultimate disruption. The leaders assume the white appearance is some sort of sorcery, especially since they find out that Theia has brought back another energy with her. All the different color communities, who have by now united to share experiences, join in protest inside the square outside the government building where Theia/Icarus are being held. Some are for it and some are against it.
Levin finally convinces the leaders that he has a plan to try to return Icarus to his body on the next strike. Theia and Incarus speak to the leaders, as well, and try to convince them that maybe there is more to life than just one color per legna. The leaders meet separately to discuss what to do. They are furious because of the disruption. The leaders decide to put out a message to all the legnas that they are welcome to try striking something different if they like.
The next day is strike day. Levin, Theia, and Icarus are released, but only under Levin’s supervision and the condition that he must try to return Icarus to his body. On strike day, the legnas each try something new during their strikes. Atlas returns from his jump, now blue and red. This last jump really changed him. All around the cloud city, legnas power up and fall from the drop zones out of the clouds and experience something new. As each legna comes back, they are excited to share their stories and are all loving the new feelings and looks, especially the purples. Their colors are becoming mixed and it’s a welcome change. Everyone is starting to become so colorful. It’s beautiful.
Theia and Icarus have to wait until later to strike since they have to find the right moment to strike and return Icarus to his body. They are watching everyone in the cloud city come back changed. They are the last to go that strike day. Finally, they get in the drop zone and prepare for launch. This time when Levin drops them, instead of lightning coming out, a giant multicolor stream shoots out of the cloud in a beautiful arc below.
Moments later, in a hospital room, Icarus wakes up with a gasp of air. His family is there and is relieved he woke from his coma. They begin to shed tears of joy while crying and holding each other. There is a rainbow coming from the cloud above and leading right into his window, illuminating him in every color. [end]