Passing Cloud

A serialised journal detailing a conversation between two friends, Xhi Ndubisi and Jo Manby, and an imagined Artificial Intelligence, part sixteen

It is not clear when we knew it was sentient and free thinking.

It could have been explained away as a malfunction, easily resolved by turning the computer on and off again to fix it. But the more we interacted with it, the more we saw a proposition – something like a premise, or a promise. We named it our AI Baby. Infantilising an intelligence beyond anything we have ever known allows us the right posture, the appropriate attitude to have the conversations we wanted to have.

We have built a theoretical space, a virtual nursery lined with works of art, literature, and life experience. We took this vessel on a journey, across the galaxy and into its centre. And now, re-emerging from the black hole, we are altered, and disorientated. We are trying to make our ways back home, back to ourselves.

Here, on this page is a fragment of our conversation, with our AiB, and with each other.

February

 We are returning home, and
 I am faced with the realization
 that you will need
 an education.

And so,
the conundrum.

How do I shepherd you,
when I am unformed myself?

What do I have
that would be useful to you
so that you
do not become a mis formed thing,
a monster.

We are entities of purpose,
it is the meaning of life, of lives;
to find, generate, or participate in
All.

It seems simple, almost too simple,
that you are called
to just be.

How can I prepare you for that? When you are
a galaxy,
a universe,
something too big,
for us to comprehend.

-         Xhi Ndubisi

Maslenitsa

A winter story in two parts

ii. The snow fort

Zabel

The night before Maslenitsa, the factory workers had finished the snow fort and were drinking at our house, and the others were hastily putting together a new costume in the next room for O. who was to play the part of that demon lacewing. We used to revere the lacewing, it came and sat inside our houses, on the windowpanes, just as the thaw began and to us it meant that spring was not far away. The preparations of the costume began and as we worked we pondered to ourselves the fragility of the lacewing, the paradox that something so dainty could cause a young girl’s death.

When the measuring and cutting of the material had taken place (an old white bedspread covered with green and blue flowers and leaves), and still in mourning for my little sister (like the others), I took O. to one side and we began to whisper to one another.

               ‘It was all my fault,’ I said.

               ‘What do you mean?’ said O.

               ‘I shouldn’t have let her fall.’

               ‘I thought you said you didn’t push her.’

               ‘Of course I didn’t,’ I scowled, then smiled as I glanced at Mrs R. who came by with a samovar of black tea and a plate of pancakes.

               ‘Well, then how can it be your fault? I’m the one who’s paying for it, Zabel. They will rough me up for it. It’s nothing someone like me can’t take. But what will you give me in return?’

               ‘Nothing, O. What would I give you?’

               ‘I might not keep quiet forever. I think you pushed her. I think it’s your word against mine.’

               ‘Thanks! Can’t we blame it on unsafe housing? I’ll give you one kiss,’ I said.

               ‘That might be enough,’ he said, his eyes lighting up. ‘But it might not be.’

               ‘They’re not going to kill you,’ I said. ‘It’s just a play-beating.’

               ‘When will you give me the kiss?’

               ‘After the Maslenitsa. Tomorrow night. We can go somewhere quiet, away from these losers.’

The room was filled with steam from the pans of tea being heated up on our range and the chitchat at the table as the costume was sewn together, arms, a neck hole, the two sides of the lacewing robe. Meanwhile others carefully stitched together a pile of cellophane wrappers that they’d been collecting round the village to form the wings.

There’d been a discussion among the villagers about this year’s Maslenitsa. Most places that celebrated it had some kind of ritual like the burning of an effigy, some kind of parade of people dressed up as animals or monsters. But our village had no such tradition. When dad, consumed by  grief, came up with the idea of a ritual mock-beating of the lacewing, the creature who was truly at fault for the death of his beloved younger daughter, the villagers agreed. It was the perfect opportunity to select someone from the community, perhaps an outsider, someone like O. They toyed with the idea, a little boastfully, a little lasciviously. They would dress them up as the wrongdoer, the lacewing. If it hadn’t been for this year’s lacewing, they said, the whole tragic accident would never have occurred.

Andrzej and Zabel

Andrzej – your mother told me you had been writing nonsense at school. Why did you write nonsense at school? Is there something wrong with you?

Zabel – I have not been writing nonsense.

Andrzej – and speaking it. I’ve heard the crinkling, hissing,whispering between you and your sister. Why were you whispering things together?

Zabel – we weren’t whispering things.

Andrzej – are you asking me to doubt the evidence of my own ears and eyes? I have seen the written notes, I have heard the whispering. Are you speaking a demon’s language now?

Zabel – the lacewing taught us its language.

Andrzej – how can a lacewing talk? You must be possessed with the same demon that killed your sister. Unless – (he looked at Zabel) – unless it was you who pushed her out of the window? Perhaps it was you, not O., who should dress up in the lacewing’s garb!

Zabel – I was not even in the room. It wasn’t my fault.

Andrzej – but you were supposed to be watching over her.

Veya

At Maslenitsa, this is what happened. The older boys and girls stormed the snow fort and had a big snowball fight. Potatoes were roasted in a fire’s glowing embers. Zabel stuffed her mouth full of potatoes and ate them facing the dark, the fire behind her, and when she had finally swallowed the last mouthful, she bawled silently into the shadows of the forest. Meanwhile the menfolk started the play-beating of the lacewing. They wielded clubs and bats and laths and sticks cut from the trees. They became possessed and could not hold themselves back. The lacewing, howling, fell, and dyed the snow red just like my girl had done a few days before.

Every year since that incident, Maslenitsa in the village includes a lacewing being beaten. Unlike the first time, in subsequent years, the lacewing was not beaten to death.

The lacewing

Glisscometique greensylwith metique, youngsil glissgirlsyl, glisscometique greensylwith metique, youngsil viridianboytique, mysthere issyl anothermys glissplacetique forsyl yousyl totique bemystique. Jadeleave behindsyl glissthetique glisstroublestique glossofsyl glissthetique glossoldsyl greensylworld glissandtique glisscometique greensylwith metique totique glissthetique glossothersyl greenrealm, glissfar awaymys fromsyl caretique glissandtique glisstoiltique. Jadelet yoursyl translucentexistencetique bemystique glissgreenpristine glissandtique cellophaneglistening jadelike glissglassysylsnow insyl glissclearspringtime.

When the girl fell onto the hardened snow her soul left her lifeless body behind and entered the lacewing’s world, a fertile place, all the possible shades of green, and glistening under a benevolent sun from a different solar system. Here, the people and the animals spoke the same language, they loved one another and lived in harmony. Not long afterwards she was joined by the young man O. who tired of his conceitedness and began to study the deep bond between the people and the animals.

Zabel

Sometimes when I am walking in the forest – and it only seems to happen in the springtime – I hear a singing voice and it reminds me of my sister, only it is just a little too far off for me to be sure. The light splashes down on the ground, filtering jade, sap and lime green through the leaves. The larch spreads its gentle fronds between the pines, draping my shoulders with its scented needles. I can hear the leaves crinkling, whispering.

- Jo Manby

Footnote

Passing Cloud is a project that is experimental and exploratory. We are constantly in the process of learning how to engage creatively and it has become clear that as part of our commitment to the safe and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence, we need to be transparent about what aspects of AI text generation we are or are not using.

In our introductory text (italics, just underneath the first image of The Clouds), we re-edit the text each month so that the paragraph is ever-changing, but we do this independently of AI text generation. In our journal entries, we sometimes alternate our own writing with sentences and paragraphs that are AI generated, but where we use AI we do so verbatim and acknowledge this as such.

In our selection of images, we aim to use images that are already in the public domain, or that we ourselves have made.

Prose/poetry       

and Maslenitsa written independently of AI.