July 20, 2023 • 16 mins
"Cloud Zoo" is a story by Moriam E. Kuye from the April issue of Worlds of Possibility. Dami Olukoya narrates this one. To see the full show notes, including the text of the story and the accompanying illustration, visit https://www.juliarios.com/cloud-zoo-a-story-by-moriam-e-kuye/ .
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the OMG Julia podcast,where we discuss creative lives and processes.
I'm your host, Julia Rios,and today I have another Worlds of Possibility
story for you. This piece iscalled cloud Zoo by Moriam E Cooye,
and it's from the April issue ofWorld's of Possibility. This is a short
(00:26):
and sweet peace about the anxieties ofparenthood. I really love it, so
let's get right into it, shallwe. Cloud zo written by Mariam E
(00:49):
Couye narrated by Damiel Lakoya. Meand my husband haven't let go since having
Alice. She's our precious three yearold who has our hat on a leash,
who has John tugged to his phonewith our babysitter. Yep, she
only falls asleep with her panda thesedays. Once John is sure Alice is
(01:11):
still breathing, he rests his phonein the grass. I'm smiling at him
because we're just husband and wife fora night. I want him to admire
the way we mirror each other,sat cross legged in our garden, both
naked and brown, chests rising andfalling. But John is a warrior,
(01:33):
so to help him let go,I chase his thoughts away. Did you
know a jellyfish is about ninety fivewater? Or that water can be a
solid liquid or gas? Where areyour thoughts, John? His silence is
a good sign. I taught himto let go, and I thank my
(01:53):
mum for teaching me too, ina way. When I was young enough
to see m as a giant,I slid beside her on our leather sofa.
She was a nurse then, andI could never imagine her smiling as
she patted down plasters and magic lollipops. She was always grumpy or tired or
(02:15):
both. That evening I was streamingoff fun facts. Some people can't lick
their elbows. The sun doesn't reallygo to sleep, It just visits another
part of the world. Mum fellasleep. I stomped to our garden and
stripped off all my clothes to catcha cold. But it was boring waiting,
(02:38):
so I lay in the damp grass, pointing out animals in the sky.
First angry cloud lions roaring at cloudelephants, then the typical stuff,
fluffy swans fixing up giraffes with brokencloud necks. I became so calm that
I melted. I pulled over mybones, and then evaporated a weightless air
(03:02):
bubble cart wheeling over our laundry rackuntil I plopped back on my bones and
morphed into my body. It alwaystakes John a while because he's a warrior,
But once he melts, I letgo of my own thoughts. Your
fridge is leaking, you're a distantmother. And I melt too, And
(03:25):
even with the burdens of my bonesrushing back to me in emotions and thoughts,
I'm just water. Now I'm free. I am a jellyfish. Let's
not stay up too long, Johnsays, I evaporate and leap over our
(03:45):
red canna lilies towards the dusk orangeswells of the sky. I lead us
over a neon street where party goersscreech on heels, the great migration to
all things loud and pulsing and bitterlyintoxicating. I saw over traffic through a
sticky smog, toward the fair ground, blinking with lights. Remember our first
(04:12):
fair date, I say, condensingon a tree leaf, following the smiles
of a carousel below. I feltlike a child. I wanted us to
go on everything. He almost soundssentimental. What's wrong? A girl giggles
with her mother in a spinning teacup. Nothing. I just think we should
(04:35):
do this together more. John slipsclose to my droplet. It's not so
easy. Now. What if Aliceneeds me and I'm not around, and
then she grows up resenting me.You're fine, John, My mum was
distant, and we get along wellenough at my distant No, you're the
(05:00):
perfect father, And in our silencewith merry go round tunes, I say,
let stir up some lightning. Idon't think we should stay that long,
or if Anne needs to call.She's never had to. Anne's perfect
with Alice. I evaporate. Ibowl over the sweet popcorn kernels. I
(05:26):
rise above the teenagers, screaming downa big drop. The clouds look gray
this high. All the rides andthe voices and the colors begin to shrink
into distant, silent specks. Ilearned as an adult that any job could
turn a person grumpy. I wonderif Alice saw how tired I was yesterday,
(05:47):
too busy thinking about lesson plans andbiology papers to Mark. She was
waving her coloring inn of a rainbowzebra, and I think I remembered to
smile. Did I smile when Itold her how talented she was? Or
did I sigh? John joins meand we swirled together as a cloud Lalla.
(06:12):
I know to night it is justfor us, but I can't shake
the feeling I'm doing things wrong.You're fine. Alice loves you, honestly.
He's always a ray of sunshine withher. I heat up and our
cloud charges a bolt, sparks,and it feels like a scream. Do
(06:35):
you think I'm grumpy? He igniteshis own spark. Sometimes I roll and
thunder booms. It feels like asigh. Do you think she'll remember me
as a grumpy mum? I justhope she remembers us at all. What
if she doesn't need us when she'solder, or what if she learns to
(07:00):
let go and never comes back andlives as a broken cloud gerar for the
rest of her life. John graysor worse, a cloud sloth. I
just want her to be happy andloved. Call us at least once a
week. I was hoping for everyday. I swell our cloud till it
(07:23):
fluffs like cotton candy. I wanther to know that I love her and
I think she's special. She does, You're an amazing mother. My lullad
it o mortayo, don'tful name me, I say, And when he mirrors
me in the air, I tellhim you really are a good father and
(07:45):
a decent husband, and you're notgrumpy most of the time. A blastom
steam. Still in a hurry toget back, we could stay for a
bit longer. John leaps above me, swelling as a cloud dolphin, and
we vent and listen. I thinkI needed this too. Though our worries
(08:09):
aren't to sleep. They seem faroff in another part of the world.
We dance and spark lightning. Weanimal morph and play, chasing each other
as little fluffy cloud rabbits. Thatwas cloud Zoo by moriam E Cooye.
(08:37):
Moriam E Cooyey she Her is aNigerian British speculative fiction writer from London,
UK. She is a perpetual daydreamerwho enjoys documentaries, games and roller skating
on sunny days. She can befound lurking in a hidden corner of Twitter
at morium m O r I amunderscore m E m I. This story
(09:05):
was narrated by Damio Lakoya. DamioLekoia is a British Nigerian actress and voice
artist based in Essex. A richlyversatile narrator, Domi has worked across a
wide range of genres, from youngadult and self help to fantasy and thrillers.
I love this story because of theway it acknowledges difficulties, both ones
(09:31):
that we've kept with us since childhoodand ones that we carry with us into
our adult responsibilities. The anxieties ofparenthood of responsibility are so great, but
this also embraces joy. It embracescreativity, imagination, bonding with your loved
ones, and creating a stronger supportnetwork, all things that I think are
(09:54):
really important to having a healthy life, and I love the way that Mariam
has explored these. If you wantto read the text of this story,
you can go over to Julia Riosdot com and click on the Worlds of
Possibility tag. It should be rightthere. There is an illustration that accompanies
(10:15):
it, which is something that Ithrew together using stock art. It has
two cute little bunnies in a fluffycloud against a purple sky. And yes,
so you can go see all ofthose things. If you've been enjoying
Worlds of Possibility, you can supportit by subscribing through my website, Julia
Rios dot com. And also eventuallythere will be a World's of Possibility anthology
(10:41):
for you to buy, but notquite yet. I'm still working on it.
I have at this point accepted thetwo poems that I was going to
accept from the stretch goal that wereached on our Kickstarter, and I've just
about got everything together to put intothe n bology. Now it's a matter
(11:01):
of choosing what order things go in, making sure all the formatting is correct,
adding in any additional illustrations, andof course I'm still waiting on the
cover art from our amazing cover artist, Grace Pfong. She has shown me
some preliminary sketches and progress sketches andI'm loving the direction. So I'm very
(11:24):
excited to see the final product,which hopefully I should see sometime next month,
and then I guess we'll be lookingat putting things into the proof stages,
getting them off to authors, andsending the books to print. So
we still are on track for hopefullydistributing the books to all the kickstarter backers
(11:46):
in October of this year, whichis what I had originally hoped for,
and sometime after that, they'll beavailable on retail for anyone who wants to
buy a copy for themselves who didn'tsupport the kicks. I'm also looking at
changing some of the ways things workaround my website and Worlds of Possibility issues.
(12:09):
Currently, you can only get themif you're a subscriber and then you
have access. I am thinking aboutputting individual ones up for sale somewhere.
I'm not sure yet exactly how Iwould like to do that, or if
I would like to do that,but if that's something that you're interested in,
do let me know, because ifa lot of people seem interested,
that will make me more likely tolook into it more seriously. In other
(12:33):
news, the other thing that I'mworking on lately is another kickstarter for a
ghost story anthology called why Didn't YouJust Leave? I am co editing that
one with Nadia Bulcan, who isan amazing horror writer. We just had
a reading at Readercon where we readsome excerpts of the stories. We have
(12:54):
some great, very scary stories.This is the opposite of Worlds of Possibility.
It's not to make you feel good, It's gonna make you feel scared.
But Nadia is wonderful. Nadia hasa great taste. She is so
well versed in horror. She watchesso many horror movies and reviews them online,
and she has written some just killerthings. I got to also listen
(13:18):
to her reading by herself and thatwas amazing. So if you back that
Kickstarter it is up until the endof this month. If you love ghost
stories as much as I do andwant to sign up to be scared.
I love ghost stories and get nightmares, but I still love them anyway,
(13:39):
so if you're like me, youcan sign up through the end of the
month. Over on Kickstarter, thereare some really cute stickers that I designed
that are like little ghosties, alittle cute ghost saying boo, a little
headstone that says why didn't you justleave? And a little ghost rising out
of bub bowl of cereal that haslabeled ghost eos. Those are all again
(14:00):
designed by me using stock art,and you can get those as rewards in
it as well. So even ifyou don't love ghost stories and horror,
if you love the Halloween aesthetic andcute little ghosts, then you might find
something over there that you love aswell. There are also some other really
cool rewards, and one that Iwanted to take a moment to talk about
(14:22):
is the Manifest your Own Digital Hauntingreward. Now you can get that one
both as a reward primary tier oras an add on. So if you
don't want to get the book andall of the other things that go with
that, you can go ahead andsign up for you know, one of
(14:43):
the lower tiers and then go tothe ad on section and you can add
this on. What it is isit's a zoom session that we're going to
have with a paranormal expert. She'sa paranormal investigator and also a medium.
Her name is Catherine bur Kfeld,and she has agreed to talk to a
small group of us, so we'llbe limited. There will only be a
(15:05):
few of us. You will havea chance to interact with her and ask
your questions. If you're a writerand you enjoy writing ghost stories or anything
that involves the paranormal, or ifyou're a person who's ever been curious about
it, if you're someone who wantsto have tips for dealing with a haunting
or just want to know how tocontact the other side, or what else
(15:30):
you can find out about, likewhat gadgets do paranormal investigators use. You
can ask any of these questions andCatherine will be happy to answer them.
She has also told us she's willingto share some of the evidence from her
investigations, So if you want tobe spooked, it's also a possibility that
that can happen. If you wantto sign up for that one, I
would be super excited to see youthere. I'm really going to be excited
(15:54):
to see what Catherine has to sayand find out what all of the questions
that are backers have lead to.All Right, for now, I'm going
to end here. Thank you somuch for listening. If you love Worlds
of Possibility, please tell everyone youknow and I'll catch you next time.
Welcome to the OMG Julia podcast,where we discuss creative lives and processes.
I'm your host, Julia Rios,and today I have another Worlds of Possibility
story for you. This piece iscalled cloud Zoo by Moriam E Cooye,
and it's from the April issue ofWorld's of Possibility. This is a short
(00:26):
and sweet peace about the anxieties ofparenthood. I really love it, so
let's get right into it, shallwe. Cloud zo written by Mariam E
(00:49):
Couye narrated by Damiel Lakoya. Meand my husband haven't let go since having
Alice. She's our precious three yearold who has our hat on a leash,
who has John tugged to his phonewith our babysitter. Yep, she
only falls asleep with her panda thesedays. Once John is sure Alice is
(01:11):
still breathing, he rests his phonein the grass. I'm smiling at him
because we're just husband and wife fora night. I want him to admire
the way we mirror each other,sat cross legged in our garden, both
naked and brown, chests rising andfalling. But John is a warrior,
(01:33):
so to help him let go,I chase his thoughts away. Did you
know a jellyfish is about ninety fivewater? Or that water can be a
solid liquid or gas? Where areyour thoughts, John? His silence is
a good sign. I taught himto let go, and I thank my
(01:53):
mum for teaching me too, ina way. When I was young enough
to see m as a giant,I slid beside her on our leather sofa.
She was a nurse then, andI could never imagine her smiling as
she patted down plasters and magic lollipops. She was always grumpy or tired or
(02:15):
both. That evening I was streamingoff fun facts. Some people can't lick
their elbows. The sun doesn't reallygo to sleep, It just visits another
part of the world. Mum fellasleep. I stomped to our garden and
stripped off all my clothes to catcha cold. But it was boring waiting,
(02:38):
so I lay in the damp grass, pointing out animals in the sky.
First angry cloud lions roaring at cloudelephants, then the typical stuff,
fluffy swans fixing up giraffes with brokencloud necks. I became so calm that
I melted. I pulled over mybones, and then evaporated a weightless air
(03:02):
bubble cart wheeling over our laundry rackuntil I plopped back on my bones and
morphed into my body. It alwaystakes John a while because he's a warrior,
But once he melts, I letgo of my own thoughts. Your
fridge is leaking, you're a distantmother. And I melt too, And
(03:25):
even with the burdens of my bonesrushing back to me in emotions and thoughts,
I'm just water. Now I'm free. I am a jellyfish. Let's
not stay up too long, Johnsays, I evaporate and leap over our
(03:45):
red canna lilies towards the dusk orangeswells of the sky. I lead us
over a neon street where party goersscreech on heels, the great migration to
all things loud and pulsing and bitterlyintoxicating. I saw over traffic through a
sticky smog, toward the fair ground, blinking with lights. Remember our first
(04:12):
fair date, I say, condensingon a tree leaf, following the smiles
of a carousel below. I feltlike a child. I wanted us to
go on everything. He almost soundssentimental. What's wrong? A girl giggles
with her mother in a spinning teacup. Nothing. I just think we should
(04:35):
do this together more. John slipsclose to my droplet. It's not so
easy. Now. What if Aliceneeds me and I'm not around, and
then she grows up resenting me.You're fine, John, My mum was
distant, and we get along wellenough at my distant No, you're the
(05:00):
perfect father, And in our silencewith merry go round tunes, I say,
let stir up some lightning. Idon't think we should stay that long,
or if Anne needs to call.She's never had to. Anne's perfect
with Alice. I evaporate. Ibowl over the sweet popcorn kernels. I
(05:26):
rise above the teenagers, screaming downa big drop. The clouds look gray
this high. All the rides andthe voices and the colors begin to shrink
into distant, silent specks. Ilearned as an adult that any job could
turn a person grumpy. I wonderif Alice saw how tired I was yesterday,
(05:47):
too busy thinking about lesson plans andbiology papers to Mark. She was
waving her coloring inn of a rainbowzebra, and I think I remembered to
smile. Did I smile when Itold her how talented she was? Or
did I sigh? John joins meand we swirled together as a cloud Lalla.
(06:12):
I know to night it is justfor us, but I can't shake
the feeling I'm doing things wrong.You're fine. Alice loves you, honestly.
He's always a ray of sunshine withher. I heat up and our
cloud charges a bolt, sparks,and it feels like a scream. Do
(06:35):
you think I'm grumpy? He igniteshis own spark. Sometimes I roll and
thunder booms. It feels like asigh. Do you think she'll remember me
as a grumpy mum? I justhope she remembers us at all. What
if she doesn't need us when she'solder, or what if she learns to
(07:00):
let go and never comes back andlives as a broken cloud gerar for the
rest of her life. John graysor worse, a cloud sloth. I
just want her to be happy andloved. Call us at least once a
week. I was hoping for everyday. I swell our cloud till it
(07:23):
fluffs like cotton candy. I wanther to know that I love her and
I think she's special. She does, You're an amazing mother. My lullad
it o mortayo, don'tful name me, I say, And when he mirrors
me in the air, I tellhim you really are a good father and
(07:45):
a decent husband, and you're notgrumpy most of the time. A blastom
steam. Still in a hurry toget back, we could stay for a
bit longer. John leaps above me, swelling as a cloud dolphin, and
we vent and listen. I thinkI needed this too. Though our worries
(08:09):
aren't to sleep. They seem faroff in another part of the world.
We dance and spark lightning. Weanimal morph and play, chasing each other
as little fluffy cloud rabbits. Thatwas cloud Zoo by moriam E Cooye.
(08:37):
Moriam E Cooyey she Her is aNigerian British speculative fiction writer from London,
UK. She is a perpetual daydreamerwho enjoys documentaries, games and roller skating
on sunny days. She can befound lurking in a hidden corner of Twitter
at morium m O r I amunderscore m E m I. This story
(09:05):
was narrated by Damio Lakoya. DamioLekoia is a British Nigerian actress and voice
artist based in Essex. A richlyversatile narrator, Domi has worked across a
wide range of genres, from youngadult and self help to fantasy and thrillers.
I love this story because of theway it acknowledges difficulties, both ones
(09:31):
that we've kept with us since childhoodand ones that we carry with us into
our adult responsibilities. The anxieties ofparenthood of responsibility are so great, but
this also embraces joy. It embracescreativity, imagination, bonding with your loved
ones, and creating a stronger supportnetwork, all things that I think are
(09:54):
really important to having a healthy life, and I love the way that Mariam
has explored these. If you wantto read the text of this story,
you can go over to Julia Riosdot com and click on the Worlds of
Possibility tag. It should be rightthere. There is an illustration that accompanies
(10:15):
it, which is something that Ithrew together using stock art. It has
two cute little bunnies in a fluffycloud against a purple sky. And yes,
so you can go see all ofthose things. If you've been enjoying
Worlds of Possibility, you can supportit by subscribing through my website, Julia
Rios dot com. And also eventuallythere will be a World's of Possibility anthology
(10:41):
for you to buy, but notquite yet. I'm still working on it.
I have at this point accepted thetwo poems that I was going to
accept from the stretch goal that wereached on our Kickstarter, and I've just
about got everything together to put intothe n bology. Now it's a matter
(11:01):
of choosing what order things go in, making sure all the formatting is correct,
adding in any additional illustrations, andof course I'm still waiting on the
cover art from our amazing cover artist, Grace Pfong. She has shown me
some preliminary sketches and progress sketches andI'm loving the direction. So I'm very
(11:24):
excited to see the final product,which hopefully I should see sometime next month,
and then I guess we'll be lookingat putting things into the proof stages,
getting them off to authors, andsending the books to print. So
we still are on track for hopefullydistributing the books to all the kickstarter backers
(11:46):
in October of this year, whichis what I had originally hoped for,
and sometime after that, they'll beavailable on retail for anyone who wants to
buy a copy for themselves who didn'tsupport the kicks. I'm also looking at
changing some of the ways things workaround my website and Worlds of Possibility issues.
(12:09):
Currently, you can only get themif you're a subscriber and then you
have access. I am thinking aboutputting individual ones up for sale somewhere.
I'm not sure yet exactly how Iwould like to do that, or if
I would like to do that,but if that's something that you're interested in,
do let me know, because ifa lot of people seem interested,
that will make me more likely tolook into it more seriously. In other
(12:33):
news, the other thing that I'mworking on lately is another kickstarter for a
ghost story anthology called why Didn't YouJust Leave? I am co editing that
one with Nadia Bulcan, who isan amazing horror writer. We just had
a reading at Readercon where we readsome excerpts of the stories. We have
(12:54):
some great, very scary stories.This is the opposite of Worlds of Possibility.
It's not to make you feel good, It's gonna make you feel scared.
But Nadia is wonderful. Nadia hasa great taste. She is so
well versed in horror. She watchesso many horror movies and reviews them online,
and she has written some just killerthings. I got to also listen
(13:18):
to her reading by herself and thatwas amazing. So if you back that
Kickstarter it is up until the endof this month. If you love ghost
stories as much as I do andwant to sign up to be scared.
I love ghost stories and get nightmares, but I still love them anyway,
(13:39):
so if you're like me, youcan sign up through the end of the
month. Over on Kickstarter, thereare some really cute stickers that I designed
that are like little ghosties, alittle cute ghost saying boo, a little
headstone that says why didn't you justleave? And a little ghost rising out
of bub bowl of cereal that haslabeled ghost eos. Those are all again
(14:00):
designed by me using stock art,and you can get those as rewards in
it as well. So even ifyou don't love ghost stories and horror,
if you love the Halloween aesthetic andcute little ghosts, then you might find
something over there that you love aswell. There are also some other really
cool rewards, and one that Iwanted to take a moment to talk about
(14:22):
is the Manifest your Own Digital Hauntingreward. Now you can get that one
both as a reward primary tier oras an add on. So if you
don't want to get the book andall of the other things that go with
that, you can go ahead andsign up for you know, one of
(14:43):
the lower tiers and then go tothe ad on section and you can add
this on. What it is isit's a zoom session that we're going to
have with a paranormal expert. She'sa paranormal investigator and also a medium.
Her name is Catherine bur Kfeld,and she has agreed to talk to a
small group of us, so we'llbe limited. There will only be a
(15:05):
few of us. You will havea chance to interact with her and ask
your questions. If you're a writerand you enjoy writing ghost stories or anything
that involves the paranormal, or ifyou're a person who's ever been curious about
it, if you're someone who wantsto have tips for dealing with a haunting
or just want to know how tocontact the other side, or what else
(15:30):
you can find out about, likewhat gadgets do paranormal investigators use. You
can ask any of these questions andCatherine will be happy to answer them.
She has also told us she's willingto share some of the evidence from her
investigations, So if you want tobe spooked, it's also a possibility that
that can happen. If you wantto sign up for that one, I
would be super excited to see youthere. I'm really going to be excited
(15:54):
to see what Catherine has to sayand find out what all of the questions
that are backers have lead to.All Right, for now, I'm going
to end here. Thank you somuch for listening. If you love Worlds
of Possibility, please tell everyone youknow and I'll catch you next time.
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