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Lonely As A Cloud
by Soul Spinner
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I don't know why they stay in my thoughts so.  I mean, I was with them for 
less than the blink of an eye, in cosmic terms, on an insignificant little 
mudball, circling a boring yellow star, in a galaxy just like any other in 
the backwater of the universe.  It's impossible, this feeling of longing.  I 
should not be able to feel at all.  But I can, and this is the reason; once 
I was human, once I was loved.  Now I am more than any small-minded, simple 
species of creatures like humanity can even imagine.  Now I am the mother of 
stars, a creator of life on the grand scale.  For awhile, I forgot.  For 
awhile, I was human.  For awhile, I was loved.  And it taught me loneliness. 
  Once, I was called Cloud.  Once, I knew a man called Iceman and a woman 
called Moondragon.  Once, it was so much simpler . . .

Mine is an odd story.  Oh, things have happened in our incredible universe 
that are more improbable, more astounding.  But my story is still pretty 
farfetched in a cosmos where the impossible happens daily.  I am a sentient 
nebula.  That's right.  I am a creature made of spinning particles of matter 
and volatile gasses, held together by the force of gravity, creating energy 
and heat and giving birth to suns.  I am a vast being spread out over the 
dark coldness of space.  I'm not the first nebula that is aware, and will 
not be the last, but we *are* rare.  And I am the only one that I know of 
who has lived as something other than I am.  I thought I was human.

It's a very long and convoluted story.  The gist of it is this:  Something 
called the Sun-Thief was killing stars.  Scared, I consulted with the Cosmic 
Cube and it told me to seek the help of a species of intelligent 
carbon-based life forms that lived on a planet they cutely called Earth.  It 
told me that some of these "humans" were powerful enough to help me, as well 
as honorable and brave, particularly one called Captain America.  With its 
help, I went to Earth, leaving all but a tiny wisp of my mass behind, and 
took the form of two humans who were in a car crash.  I linked my nervous 
system to Carol Faber and Danny Milligan and the shock of their pain drove 
all memory of who I really was from my mind.  I was found by the Secret 
Empire.  When their leader, Professor Anthony Power, found out about my 
"powers" to change from the human girl they thought I was into a cloud, he 
decided to make me an operative of evil.  They gave me two complete sets of 
memories.  I was given a sister, Seraph, and in the end, she really was like 
a sister to me.  I worked for the bad guys for some time before I switched 
sides and joined a group of powerful humans called "superheroes."  In this 
group, the Defenders, I met a beautiful woman from the planet Titan . . . 
and fell in love.

It's difficult to understand, I know, but at that time, on that planet, a 
presumed female just did not fall in love with another woman.  So, not truly 
being human at all, I took the form of a male of the species.  It confused 
me, and all the people I had come to call friends.  I still knew nothing of 
my true nature.  They called me Cloud because of my ability to become one.  
Not even in their wildest imaginings did any of my teammates guess the 
secret of my real origin.

Moondragon . . . she did not love me as I did her.  We drifted apart.  I am 
good at drifting; I am, after all, merely a cloud.  Then I came to love 
another, and he returned my love.  I did not know any better.  I did not 
know that I was a cosmic phenomenon and was not supposed to be able to feel 
love like humans did.  Iceman and I, we were happy.  I was his girl, and 
sometimes at night when that was not enough, I was a man for him.  My Bobby 
was a confused human, pulled in one direction by his society and in another 
by his nature, but I loved him and that was enough for me.  I was perfect 
for him.  It was wonderful to be desired.  It was wonderful to be human.

When I remembered that I was not human, it almost destroyed me and the 
people I cared for.  Especially Bobby.  I didn't know who or what I truly 
was and I thought I was going crazy.  Seraph helped me.  She told me of my 
look-alikes, Carol and Danny, both in comas in a place called Norbrook, West 
Virginia.  Seeing them, I finally realized what I was and remembered my 
mission.  With the help of some of Earth's superheroes, I stopped the 
Sun-Thief.  It is an irony that this great cosmic threat was a frightened 
adolescent alien princess with too much power at her disposal.  The other 
stars were restored.  With the threat gone and my memory returned, I had no 
further reason to stay on Earth, to stay human.  Iceman, he begged me to 
stay and I almost did.  But I missed the void of space and I knew in my 
nonexistent heart that I couldn't be human anymore now that I knew what I 
really was, not even for love.  My time as a human taught me many things, 
foremost among them love . . . and pain.

There is a poem, written by a human whose matter has gone to nourish other 
life, that spoke to me the first time I read it and still does.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Like the man and his daffodils, I huddle around the memory of my time as the 
human called Cloud.  I remember Moondragon and Iceman and all the others and 
I think that if I still had tears, I would weep.  I made my choice and I 
love being what I truly am, but some small part of me was left behind on 
that tiny planet, in the form of my beloved Iceman, and it brings me pain.  
Maybe in several billion years when my stars have left the cradle of my 
gasses, when my matter has been spun away to create new suns that will 
attract and provide the spawning grounds of new life, maybe then, as my 
thoughts fade, the pain will be less.  Maybe then I'll have forgotten what 
it is to be human.  Maybe then I'll not remember what it is to love.  But I 
doubt it.  Long, long after both Moondragon and Iceman have ceased to be, I 
will carry the memory of them.  I know this.

And now you, Uatu, will carry the memory of my story.  Tell me, Watcher, you 
who have seen the birth and death of universes, how do you rate my story in 
the vast scheme of things?  Is it fair or folly?  What is the purpose of one 
lonely, wandering cloud?

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The End
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