He realized Clara was right. The clouds were a reservoir of the lost.
He walked for what felt like hours, or perhaps seconds, through a gallery of his own life. He saw the first archway he ever built, the stones shimmering in the mist. He saw the face of his wife as a young girl, her laughter rendered in a flurry of ice crystals. A Walk In The Clouds
Elias tried to speak, but his throat was full of the heavy, cold mist. He reached out a calloused hand, his fingers trembling. As he touched her shoulder, the cloud beneath them began to thin. The weight of the world—the gravity he had lived by for fifty years—started to pull at his boots. "I can't stay, can I?" he managed to whisper. He realized Clara was right
A year after her passing, Elias found himself standing at that same edge. The fog was particularly dense that morning, a restless sea of pearl pressing against the cliffs. For the first time in his life, Elias didn't see a wall. He saw a path. He stepped off. He saw the first archway he ever built,
To his left, the mist coalesced into the shape of his mother’s kitchen—the scent of rosemary and scorched flour rising from the vapor. To his right, a dog he had lost twenty years ago jumped through a hoop of fog, silent and joyful.