Submitted to: Contest #300

What Are They Hiding?

Written in response to: "Write a story about a place that hides something beneath the surface."

Contemporary Creative Nonfiction Mystery

Pareidolia-the phenomenon of seeing familiar objects or faces in random cloud formations.

That's a nice sentiment but I don't believe a word of it and this is why. I've seen the things that are hidden in the clouds. Mysterious things. Obvious things... people, history, animals. Scenes from another realm perhaps. There's a whole world up there in those clouds that we know nothing about and I've only gotten glimpses through my camera's eye.

I wonder why I'm called to take pictures of certain clouds because in reality I don't find something in every cloud but I will typically find something in the clouds taken on the same day as the clouds that had nothing revealed in them. I have seen things that were so horrific I was on my knees crying and praying to God to unsee them. I saw a lady in an opening in the side of a mountain, and her back was pressed up against the wall, in her desperate attempt to keep from falling into the dark abyss that was just below where her feet were. And she was looking right at me.

I once saw a caravan that was straight out of the exodus in the Bible. I could see the details so vividly all the way down to the jewelry the women were wearing. The children were exhausted, some of them crying. The animals who were along for the journey.

I've seen two women sitting in a church with a baby on one of their laps reaching up to the mom. I've seen someone surfing on the back of a shark. I've seen a woman and a baby reuniting and it's so real you can see the texture of her skin.

And on too many occasions to count I've seen representatives of angels and of demons. I have many pictures to back up these claims. And I have shown many people and some of them saw the same things that I did. Some pointed out that they saw something but it was different from what I saw. And some saw nothing at all.

Does pareidolia affect people in a way that they all see the same thing in the cloud. I mean by definition it is you see in random clouds familiar objects so what if collectively multiple people are seeing the same thing within a random cloud does that still qualify as a phenomena or is it something deeper. What are the clouds hiding just above their surface?

And then I begin to feel that whatever is happening behind the clouds is somehow tied into to the ocean.

To add to this mystery, I'm certain that I've astral projected by accident. Or at least it wasn't planned or initiated. It has happened twice, the exact same experience but subtle differences so that I knew it was not just a memory of the first one. I'm traveling along the top of an ocean body. I'm an arm's length above the ocean and reaching down to where my finger is dangling just above the surf. The whole scene is quite surreal and I can tell you I can smell the salt water. I can feel the coolness of the ocean. I can feel the breeze that's spraying water across my face and it's quite a breeze because I seem to be traveling at about 100 miles an hour, so fast in fact that I'm freaked out that I'm going to crash. But as far as I can see there's nothing to crash into. Just water.

And to add excitement to that situation there are large fish, sharks and whales amongst them, large enough to consume me in one bite, that are traveling underneath me. They are matching my speed. They seemed to be chasing me like a fish chases the worm at the end of a fishing pole hook and they are all looking directly at me and not only can I see that I can feel it. My hand is dangling just above the surf. I have this feeling in my stomach that if those fish are able to jump up they may be able to scoop me out of the air with their large mouths. The funny thing is I'm having that thought process while I'm in the astral projection. The fear is a thrill that dares me to remain calm and to complete the journey. But where did I end up? Did I land somewhere away from the large fish?

I remember one time I had a dream about this particular incident and in my dream one of the fish was chomping down on my finger. The pain was so intense. I was screaming and trying to pull away. I felt as though if I left my finger in his grasp he was going to somehow pull me into the ocean, this not being one of the larger fish that were traveling underneath me but a much smaller fish. My finger literally filled up his entire mouth. and I yanked and I pulled and I did everything I could and I may have forgotten to mention I am traveling lying on my back, with my feet facing forward. And on that particular night in that dream I was terrified and I woke up in a panic and realized I had fallen asleep with my hand at the wrong position and my fingers were asleep thus the dream of the fish biting my finger and me being able to feel it somehow.

I have also had dreams about fish in the ocean and one of them that sticks to my mind so vividly is when I was a youth pastor's assistant and I had a dream that I was on a beach and there were giant fish beached and dead everywhere. For some reason I had a Fisher Price Recorder in my hand and I'm running from witness to witness trying to get their testimony of what's happening. This little toy is all there is to record this important information and I'm stressed out to say the least because I'm not sure it even works and I am actually interviewing young people and children. There was nobody over 30 on that beach and there were quite a few people. I look up at just the right moment. And I see a lightning bolt hit the ocean and a giant fish goes flying out of where it hit and I felt like I was learning something about God. When I turned back to the beach to continue trying to interview these witnesses the beach was empty, the dead fish were gone, the witnesses were gone, and the water was calm. The skies were blue…no storms. I looked down and I'm still holding the Fisher Price recorder.

Another very vivid memory that stays with me that I can't forget is when I dreamed I was in a setting like Mexico and I was hiding in a chicken coop and I was asking out loud is anybody here that speaks English. I could hear panicked conversations… just clips of them amongst people that were running in every direction outside of the coop. The clouds were completely ominous. As dark of a gray as you can imagine, and rumbling. They are so close to the earth you can reach up and literally put your hand into one yet I felt in my heart that that would have been a very bad thing to do. A terrible storm was in full swing over everything and at that very moment I remembered that I was alone and I should have a family somewhere. I become obsessed with the fact that I need to find my family. And I jump up and I start running through these streets of what looks like old Mexico. There's something about the clouds, they're not right. Is there something going on just behind this surface? And what is it that I'm so terrified of?

I'm quite sure in my dream I knew what it was but upon waking I could not begin to even come up with what it was. It was just one of those things that If you knew you knew. I'm running every direction trying to find somebody I know, but why! At the time I didn't have children, my mother had passed away, and I was getting ready to divorce my husband? So who on Earth was I looking for? But then I have this thought that perhaps I have forgotten that I have no one to save or I'm trying to not die alone.

I have no doubt in my mind that the clouds are hiding something significant. Answers to questions that we don't even know we have. Biblical proportion prophecies answered. And somehow there is communication. Otherwise, why would the clouds be forming shapes, scenes, scenarios, unless there was a message to convey. I know that I'm paying attention. I know that when I get that feeling I just take out my phone and take a picture of the cloud and in many many instances there's something ominous and dark hiding within. I actually thought about making a coffee table book, a large book with some of the pictures I've taken .And call it “What's In The Clouds?”

I would be willing to bet that at some point something major is going to come from the other side of the clouds. Even though it's ominous I do think it will be biblical. I'm just feeling like it's not going to be a pleasant experience for many people, if any. But that's not going to stop me. I took 15 pictures of today's clouds and I will continue to take pictures of the clouds until I either figure it out or something I'm dreading comes to pass.

Posted May 01, 2025
Share:

You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.

5 likes 0 comments

Reedsy | Default — Editors with Marker | 2024-05

Bring your publishing dreams to life

The world's best editors, designers, and marketers are on Reedsy. Come meet them.