Dead Clouds

Chapter 1: The Genius Who Wishes to be a God

"There's a formula for everything. Even for becoming a god."

A sixteen-year-old boy whispered those words as his fingers pushed the corresponding letters on his keyboard. His round glasses reflected the blinding white light that flashed from his computer screen. He pulled his hands away from the keyboard after typing the sentence. Certain claims needed space to breathe. A screech bounced off the walls of the room as the legs of his chair scratched the wooden floor panels.

The small square room would have been shrouded in complete darkness if not for the illumination of the computer screen. Curtains covered the windows opposite of his computer desk and above his bed. The only sounds in the room were the tapping on his keyboard, the ticking of an analog clock, and the thoughts he spoke out loud.

"Radius?"

The teen ignored the soft call of his grandmother outside his locked door and adjusted his glasses. He rolled his mouse until the cursor reached the top right of the screen and left-clicked minimizing the word document. A website cycling through different images of clouds filled his screen.

"There's so many of them," said Radius rubbing his hairless top lip, "Stratus clouds, cirrus clouds, mammatus clouds, and cumulonimbus clouds."

He felt like tiny roaches were crawling beneath his skin as he uttered the last type of cloud.

"Cumulonimbus clouds are the highest ranked gods in the pantheon. They are thunder gods with the power to illuminate and to destroy. Only the most righteous humans become cumulonimbus clouds when they die."

"Radius? It's getting late. Please eat dinner," pleaded his grandmother.

He tore his eyes away from the screen and squinted at the analog clock affixed to the back of his bedroom door. It was a quarter past eight. His grandparents usually went to bed at nine after watching the third re-airing of the evening news.

The cloud images on the screen captured his attention once more. He believed that his research was more important than whatever slop his decrepit grandparents cooked for him. The only thing he needed to feed was his brain. The material world was merely a pit-stop on the road to his true destination. He often envisioned his life after death. His life as a cumulonimbus cloud.

A shelf above his computer screen was filled with numerous large and gold trophies. Each engraving plate displayed his name and the words, "first place prize." The trophies came from quiz bowls, science fairs, mathematical olympiads, and other academic competitions.

Every inch of the wall beside his desk was covered with newspaper clippings. The headlines displayed his name in bold lettering. They also tracked his growth as headlines with the label "three-year-old prodigy" turned into labels reading "thirteen-year-old brainiac."

His room was a shrine dedicated to his success. Huge blue ribbons and shining plaques hung on his walls. A small bookshelf sat just below the window opposite of his computer desk. He was the author or co-author of every book on the shelf. The drive to publish his research started as soon as he was literate. Back then, journals and publishers eagerly lined up to print and disseminate the latest discoveries and theories from the world's most precocious child.

"Radius? Please eat. I'm worried about you," cried his grandmother.

A loud knock followed her cry, "Radius! Open up the door and eat something!"

Radius leaned back in his chair and groaned. His grandfather usually respected his privacy, but it seemed his grandmother had implored her husband of sixty years to get involved. The soft cries from his grandmother were easy to ignore, but the banging from his grandfather would become too much of a hindrance to his research.