Before the Ocean Rises

There's a rare sight you can catch if you look out your cabin window just before the ocean rises. Of course, that isn't literal. But any frequent flyer worth their airmiles will tell you that cruising at 33 000 feet, clouds look like they're floating symphonically on a light blue ocean. The reason, as you will no doubt know, is that there's just enough atmosphere below you that the light that diffracts as it hurtles towards us from that great big ball of light and hits air molecules starts coming at you from both below and upstairs. Normally, all the up-light is what we call the sky.

But, just as the sun's rising, if you happen to be sitting some few kilometers above the ground at the time, that fireball's light don't quite diffract. You look out a little and see a slow moving avalanche, white and imperfect and rolling, drifting carelessly over the land I'm sure a few hundred people call home sweet home. At this point you may look for panicked folks trying to save their lives and livelihoods, much to the nimbus avalanche's apathetic chagrin. Depending on your particular heading on morality's compass, some moderate shock or worry might set in. Those little lines, straight and unparallel, crooked here or there to bypass rocky maze walls, an expansive miniature insignia of ordered chaos, are quite empty.

I've been informed this is partly because the workday doesn't start until 8 o'clock and partly because clouds pose little danger to the average human. Yet those useful little vehicular rivers lie there, cutting through forest and plain and mountain. Even miles from a house, they carve out land for temselves, demanding a right to keep dirt barren and stay unique. How apt we chose the same color as we use to paint ourselves to tattoo gaia, as if yelling to the planet to acknowledge our existence, shrieking a muted demand for validation, a rebellious teenager proving to our parent that I'm here and make my own decisions and I don't  give a shit about what rules are followed under your roof. I've climbed above your roof, I've stood on it and jumped to the neighbor's house.

And earth, the apt mother long past rearing her first child, says nothing. I see the disappointment only in her eyes, but a rebel needs to find their own cause. So time ticks. The asphalt rivers and silos reflecting light like stars being born and dying slowly fade. The ocean rises.

Or 'haps I'm an old man with too little scotch in his tumbler.