The Cloud Read Free Page A

of Last One Standing , a reality show that entails out-surviving other contestants over twelve weeks of humiliation and bug eating. There was no photo.
    I haven’t heard of PRISM Corp. I Google it and discover Pacific Rim Integrated Solutions and Management, a nondescript corporate web site, dark blue background with an image in the upper right corner of a ship on the high seas. A close look shows the ship to be constructed of thousands of ones and zeroes.
    A section labeled “About PRISM” indicates the company makes software kernels that power “a range of consumer, multimedia and industrial products, from clock radios to home alarm systems.” There’s no mention of a neurotechnology department.
    I find a handful of other references to PRISM. There’s one PDF document filed with U.S. Immigration Services indicating that PRISM, a company with fifty-five employees, last year requested seven short-term work visas for foreign-born engineers. It’s not out of the ordinary; virtually every high-tech firm, from Amazon to Yahoo, seeks visas for highly skilled software engineers from India and Turkey.
    I’m baffled. I’m wondering what could possibly be the connection between a deceased former reality-TV-show contestant and me. The chief connection I can make is that I sometimes write about the brain and, at least according to her obituary, Sandy Vello worked on neurotechnology. And for a story, I once visited the juvenile hall at Twin Peaks, a salmon-colored prison, administrative building and learning annex for San Francisco’s wayward teens where Sandy volunteered. The connection between she and I is, in a word, tenuous.
    This is what preoccupies me so much that I nearly light my foot on fire.
    I’m standing at the entrance to my office, having just barely sidestepped a mound of dirt with a candle sticking out of the top that sits just inside the door. I look up to see a handful of other such be-candled dirt mounds around the edges of the small office, forming a circle. In the center of the room sits my office mate, Samantha. She’s got her arms crossed over her chest, her palms resting on her shoulders. She wears a peasant blouse and a patient smile.
    “You almost made Mamma angry,” she says.
    “Whose mamma? Or should I say: who is Mamma?”
    “Mamma Earth. She’s helping drive away the negative detritus and the painful memories.”
    I look down at the mound of dirt. “You’re allowed to stick candles in Mamma, but I’m not allowed to lovingly brush her with the bottom of my high-tops?”
    She pulls herself to her feet. She smiles bemusedly, clearly dealing with a less-evolved creature. Then her full lips turn in, a slight frown. Slight. Sam can command a thousand complex emotions but for the sake of being straightforward with the universe, she tries to reduce them to three: mild displeasure, peacefulness, mild joy. She blinks.
    “Whoa.” She studies me. “Yellow with bits of orange.”
    To anyone who hasn’t met Sam, this makes no sense. But I’ve spent years having her read my aura, or Karmic glow, or whatever it is.
    “Serious unresolved tension.” She states the not-so-mysterious. She stands up, walks over to me, flips on the light by the door. “And green. Gross.”
    “What’s green? My aura?”
    “The throw-up stain on your shoulder.”
    “Isaac. Serious unresolved dinner.”
    She shakes her head, looks at me quizzically. “It’s nearly ten.” Maybe meaning: Why are you here and not at home?
    I shrug. Half smile. She knows I can take refuge here since the breakup.
    She leans in and kisses my cheek, tenderly, like a mom or big sister, which she is, in a way. She pulls back and holds my gaze, betraying sympathy in the wrinkles around her soft brown eyes. She’s got a round face that I sometimes think of as a distant, wondrous planet.
    Samantha Leary and her husband, Dennis, ten years my senior, are great friends, limitless sounding boards, and my veritable family, despite being two of the