Clouders

By Fabiano Viana Oliveira

Meire Pop is an elementary school student. She studies in a very well-respected private school and her parents work hard so that she can study there. Meire s generation lies in the digital world. The famous Internet Cloud, which connects servers across the globe and connects people, information and everything else that gives meaning to life in our 21st century world. It s the reason they are called Clouders, an English term that derives from the cloud. Meire is a blogger. At age 14 Meire already had one of the most popular blogs by young people from all over the country. His life was very interesting and full of activities, until things began to change. That summer Marcos Freitas appeared in the classroom, transferred from another city, had a mysterious and attractive tone. But that summer crush was just the beginning of a great adventure. What if Marcos approach had been determined by messages coming from the future through dreams. And if the texts on Meire s blog were influencing young people to rebel against the oppressive system that makes them all study and work hard for nothing. And if true love was not in the handsome young kid of the school, but actually an older boy she does not yet know but who has dreamed about it. And if her dreams are also messages from the future, to what extent her choices really are really free choices. And if for all time since his blog came on the air, Meire was being watched by a person whose intentions are at least ... ambiguous. Clouders, digital adventure, pop culture: Twilight, Divergent, Hunger Games and many more are constant references between reality, fiction and fantasy of what becomes that year in the life of this curious, intelligent and fearless teenager.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clube de Autores
• Release date: Jun 22, 2022

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CLOUDERS

Meire Pop beyond the Cloud

Copyrights, cover and editing

FABIANO VIANA OLIVEIRA

Fabiano Viana Oliveira

CLOUDERS

Meire Pop beyond the Cloud

Salvador

2022

OLIVEIRA, Fabiano Viana. CLOUDERS: Meire Pop beyond the Cloud. Salvador: Author’s Edition, 2022.

180 p.

ISBN: 978-65-00-47430-5

1. Brazilian Novel. 2. Young Science Fiction. 3. English Edition.

Clouders - Meire Pop Beyond the Cloud

Chapter 1 - A BLOG AND A SUMMER LOVE

The city I live in is like any city. There are people, buildings, workers and students. I am one of the elementary school students. I study in a very well respected private school and my parents work very hard so I can be there. Many important people also keep their kids there... or at least they try. The level of demand is great and not everyone can keep up. We also have traffic, beaches and many malls... the meeting point for fun of my generation. In fact, it is an inheritance of the previous generation, because mine meets itself through the digital world. The famous Internet Cloud, which connects servers around the world and connects people, information and everything else that gives life meaning to our 21st century world. That’s why they call us Clouders, an English expression that derives from the cloud (Cloud) in use now on every other language there is.

Note: Like many others English words, everyone takes it from the way it came, like the word Internet itself.

That summer brought new things to the school life and mine too. Cool and smart girls like me should not think about it, but I could not help noticing his perfect skin face coming through the door of our classroom. A sad and penetrating look that captivated me in its entirety... The new boy who arrived in the city and our school coming from not far away, wrapped in mystery and unexpectedly exchanging glances with me. Who could have imagined that... I, who barely appeared on the center of conversations, who would sit in a corner with some friends and concentrate on my studies... catching the attention of that handsome boy.

Meire is my name and being a blogger was my bid. I hope it does not disappoint you dear readers, but this introduction is just my way of speaking about a special moment for me, but under the effect of the first Twilight saga movie. I was 14 years old and had watched the movie about five times. I posted my review of it on my blog and I was with Edward Cullen in my head as a male beauty model.

Note: This was before the second movie, New Moon, debuting and showing that Jacob was much cuter.

Then, returning to the entrance of Marcos Freitas in the classroom that day, he walked slowly with a mixture of shyness and indifference to everything. His piercing gaze met mine from time to time and I felt like Bella, as if crossed over by fate to keep that figure out of the sweetest romances. But the reality of school life came back to remind me that movies are movies.

Meire, did you do the work I asked for? - Asked the literature teacher.

Yes, I did. - And the days passed by.

Our school was considered one of the top ten schools in the state. The standard tests scores were always good. I guess that’s why we always had new students trying to get into it. Marcos Freitas was the new student of that season, but it would not be like all the others that had already appeared in our previous classes.

One of the trends that guarantee the quality of our school is the demand from our teachers that charge us the fulfillment of many tasks. It may seem contradictory, but the more flexible is the school with the rules with students the more it tends to have young people without self-control. Our families are keen to put us in a school where the rules are met. This forces us to study and much, otherwise we are invited to change schools.

After two weeks since Marcos Freitas joined the class, an incident eventually caught his attention for everyone in the class, far beyond his appearance to the girls. Being a little older he also got attention from the boys in the class, who wanted him in their various groups. He had been late for the science teacher’s class. Upon entering the room without asking permission and sitting in the back, the teacher came to have it out with him.

Aren’t you going to ask permission to enter the room, Mr. Marcos?

Sorry, teacher, I didn’t want to interrupt your explanation on evolution theory.

Oh, so you know what I was talking about?

Yes, I know ... natural selection and mutation.

That’s right ... I hope this doesn’t happen again. No delays for my class. - She turns to continue the lesson and he glances around with some satisfaction. I felt him stop and looking a few more seconds at me.

In the break time there was no mention of anything else. The novice student had been able to face the great doctor of science. Always so strict with everyone about deadlines, punctuality and discipline, she ended up having to bend over to Marcos’ argument when he was asked about the delay and discreet entry into the room. He seemed unshakable in the face of the situation. It did not seem normal for a young man of that age to be so sure of himself. This only added to the mystery surrounding him, which declined further in the following days as he began to walk with the other boys of the class and seemed to be just another one... However those apparent aspects of his personality would be essential for the understanding of what was to come in our lives.

Note: More days passed by and the girls started talking about Marcos more and more often. It seemed like soon enough some of them would hook the new guy. Who would it be?

Teenage blogs was not yet a fever at that time. Today you just need to access any large media portal online and they have a lot of youth blogs talking to young people on the most diverse subjects: dating, work, school, drugs, movies, books, sex, politics, travel, advice and even bullying. Curiously the interest of people of my age at that time for reading blogs has changed a lot because today everyone already has access to high speed mobile internet. Today is the era of smartphones and teen stars are the youtubers. But at that time it was still an alternative novelty, something rebellious for free expression of young opinions.

My blog was not revolutionary at all. It was just to share things of common interest to us all. In the case of films and reviews, it was very timely. I was lucky and I think I’m a bit talented to write so attractively to guys in my age at the time ... I would never have imagined the effects it would have in my future... And much less for all the people in the world too.

Note: It may seem pretentious to say this now, but it will soon become clearer.

Returning to my blog ... Strange comments began to appear about a kind of a ghost that appeared and appeared in several schools and in various classrooms in the city. All because of my review of the Twilight movie. I did not really care about that at the moment because I was more interested in getting to know Marcos a little better.

We formed some study groups in Geography class. The teacher’s objective was for each team to present some physical, economic and social data from different regions of the country. My group stayed with the South region and we met over the course of a week to get the job done. It was a very nice socialization opportunity, because the teacher made a mixture in the teams to avoid that vicious cliques were formed. All teachers always say that it’s important to vary who you work with, because in the professional life there is not much choice about who we will work with. At first some people were surprised to be in the company of little-known colleagues, but we ended up getting to know each other. In particular, of course, I had the luck and opportunity to be on the same team with Marcos.

He knew the geographic and socioeconomic information about the South region very well. I even asked if he was from there, since there was no identifiable accent from any part of the country on him. I still didn’t know why that happened to him... Now I know. So during that week we were able to get to know each other a bit better (both of us and the rest of the team too), but very focused on the content of the work. Our school was very demanding about the students’ performance, so we always dedicated ourselves a lot. Anyway we had already created a small loop, beyond the exchanges of looks, that was about to become stronger... Everything because of my blog.

Fridays are the best days of the week during school time, because they are always the prelude to the weekend with lots of mall, movies, games, parties... and for me a lot of reading and also a lot to add to my blog. Besides, on that particular Friday there was something more fascinating still going on in the class. Marcos had already gotten in with some of the boys in the room, so he was more at ease and the air of mystery had faded a little. The group work during the week before had helped and the exchanges of looks with me became more familiar.

A curiosity on that day was that a news story about electrical disturbances appeared throughout the city in the previous weeks. I personally had not realized, after all the blackouts of energy always happened at dawn and I was already asleep. However, I had heard my parents say something about it, and on this last night there had been very intense events in some parts of the city. Even the colleagues were commenting on: from light bulbs exploding out of nowhere to sudden blackouts and overloads in some houses. They had not discovered the possible cause of the disturbances, but it seems to have generated a kind of general concern in part of the town’s population.

Note: It’s not usual for me to care about such news, but it was very strange ... moreover the event will prove important to our story later.

The day before, at break time I was at the cafeteria with some colleagues talking about what we could do for the weekend. It was still early in the school year so there was not so much to study, so there was still room for some fun.

Note: From the seventh grade onwards everything is getting worse and worse, with more and more subjects and more and more tasks... So advice: study! so you can at least have some free time at the end of the year.

Marcos came to us still with that mysterious air, but having already gotten in a little bit with other boys he could look more closely at the girls and show more confidence as well. Of course, part of that confidence must come from the fact that he knew how handsome he was... after all, he should have some mirror in the house, and we’d done that Geography work together during the week before.

Despite the exchanges of glances with me during all those weeks, I never imagined that he would come and talk to me among the other girls. I thought he was coming to talk to Patricia or Deborah, after all, they fit the beauty model of the moment: straight blondes with well-developed bodies, although they were barely 14 years old. But no, he came directly to speak to me among them. He passed them both as if they did not even exist (which made them half jealous) and addressed me. The brunet, still a bit shallow, but always standing out with the grades and the blog, of course.

Hi, Meire.

Hi, Marcos... any problem?

Are you the Meire Pop from the blog?

Yeah, it’s me. You know?

Yes. I follow your blog. It’s really cool.

Thanks.

The girls began to distance themselves from our conversation. They started talking about other things and we stayed in ours. He said he was a movie fan and that he was very fond of my critics, who were very different from professional critics who always said standard things and did not know how to speak to younger audiences who like to identify with movies, sagas and characters in a more personal way.

I was also suspicious that he could have changed schools because he was interested in my posts about our events. But it was too much pretense ... I thought so. My intention was to involve my classmates with things I considered interesting: study groups, leisure tips, reviews of movies and books, class summaries, and photos galleries.

It started to expand when I noticed that it had about 1,000 views a day. From diverse origins and locations, I noticed that subjects