Word: cumulus

cumulus

\ KYOO-myuh-luhs \  , noun;

1. A heap; pile.

2. A cloud of a class characterized by dense individual elements in the form of puffs, mounds, or towers, with flat bases and tops that often resemble cauliflower.

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He was going down.  There was no doubt in his mind that the only landing for him would be of the crash variety.  And most likely a fatal one to, given how high up he was and the condition of his vehicle.  It was, to put it bluntly, totaled.  

    His controls were broken, the instruments were going crazy, and the steering controls were barely functioning at all.  Even though he couldn’t see them, he could hear the parts flaking off in disturbingly large chunks.  And, he was almost positive that something was on fire, if the smell was anything to go by at any rate.  He was also getting uncomfortably hot, but he couldn’t be sure if that was because of the fire he was sure existed somewhere behind him, or because of the extreme speed at which he was falling.

The one saving grace was the large cumulus cloud beneath him.  Its large, pillowy form made him think that there was still hope of some form of salvation.  Maybe Something about this cloud was special, and it would somehow cushion his fall.  Maybe passing though it would give him some form of divine inspiration, allowing him to figure out how to fix his broken vehicle.  Or perhaps...Perhaps.  It was always perhaps.  Or maybe, or possibly, or something along those lines.  Really, the only thing the cloud did for him was hide the ground, letting him forget for a few brief seconds just how close the ground was becoming.  

    Inevitably, he reached the cloud and passed through it.  Even though he couldn’t feel it directly, he could still feel its effect.  The cold moisture piled up there made everything much cooler.  No doubt any external flames that might exist were extinguished.  The fire inside would be unaffected though, unless something broke off that allowed the dense moisture inside.  But he would be able to feel that.  In all likelihood, the heat he had felt before was because of the rate of descent, not something on fire.  

The time passing through the expansive cumulus soothed his nerves a bit.  for a second, he even thought that there might just be some way to save his life.  There was nothing he could do about his vehicle, but his life was another story. The steering controls were after all, not completely broken, just mostly broken.  

He tried to see if he could coax just a little bit of lift on the front end, just enough to slow his fall a bit.  The cloud made it impossible to tell if it was working, but he continued to try.  At the very least, it gave him something to do and took his mind off the dizzying plummet.  

Finally, he emerged from the bottom of the cloud, and was once again exposed to the ground, which was still getting closer at an uncomfortable rate.  But at least now he could tell if his efforts were doing anything.  They weren’t.  The front was still pointed towards the unforgiving land below him.  Seeing this, he was about ready to give up.  

But then, something inside him came up to the surface.  His self preservation instinct had finally kicked in.  Maybe there was something he could still do in the scant seconds he had left.  He went to work immediately.  Prying open panel after panel, disconnecting and reconnecting wires seemingly at random.  He didn’t know what, if anything, would work, but he kept trying.  After a bit, he once again attempted to level out his fall just enough to make sure he wouldn’t die on impact.  This time, he heard something other than the rush of wind and the blaring klaxon calls of too many warnings.  The much more familiar, and welcome, sound of the engines coming to life.  They were pathetically weak.  Certainly not enough to break his fall.  But they could at least slow it.  He went back to the steering controls, and forced them into the up position, pushing at them as if his efforts would somehow aid the vehicles efforts to rise.  

Finally, this efforts bore fruit.  The front end of the vehicle started to move up, away from the ground, now pointing to the distant horizon.  he was still falling, there was no doubt about that, but at least he was much more likely to live now.  He breathed a quick sigh of relief, and sat back in his chair, waiting for the inevitable.  

Now that he had done everything he could, the panic once again took hold of him.  He closed his eyes tightly, and gripped the sides of his chair so hard that his knuckles turned white.  

Then it happened.  He hit the ground.  Time seemed to slow down as everything happened at once.  A loud crunch as the bottom of his vehicle hit, and then an equally loud scraping as what little forward momentum he had wound up making the vehicle jump forward along the ground.  At the same time, everything seemed to lose any relationship to gravity that it might otherwise have.  Loose parts and debris jumped up and flew through the air as if they had grown wings, only to hit the ceiling and come crashing down, bouncing and ricocheting off everything else in the proximity.  His body was no different.  He flew up out of his chair, his grip doing nothing to keep him in one place.  Bits of metal pounded him, or cut into his flesh.  He banged his head hard on the ceiling.  For a moment, he thought he could once again see the stars which were so familiar to him.  The return to the floor was no more pleasant.  More debris assaulted him, opening up fresh wounds in his already marred skin.  The chair, which had once been his one last sanctuary, now turned against him.  He hit the back of the chair hard in the stomach.  He would have had the breath knocked out of him by it, but the impact with the ground had already taken care of that.  He rolled off the chair, hitting the floor hard, and finally lost what little shreds of consciousness he had left.

The impact of the large vehicle had not been seen by any living creatures.  No doubt the wreckage would soon be discovered, as would the injured, but still living occupant.  But for the time being, the only witness to the impact was a large, billowing cumulus cloud, perfect, save for one single trail on the bottom, left like a marker, pointing to where the falling object now lay.  

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Hey, look, the word appears IN the story this time!  *Surprised gasp*  What is the world coming to?