Cloud Cuckoo Land

Folio Π

Because of the deterioration of the text, the owl’s riddle is unknown. Zeno’s translation contains his guess of a possible riddle: “He that knows all that Learning ever writ, knows only this” (440). Aethon cannot answer and thinks that everyone was correct when they told him he is stupid. He tells the owls that he knows nothing, but this turns out to be the right answer. The gates open.

Anna: Four miles west of Constantinople; May 1453

At dawn, Anna washes ashore four miles west of Constantinople. She is disappointed that she can still see the city, smoke rising inside the walls, and wonders if the Ottomans have breached the walls. She collects her belongings, all wet from the sea, and finds herself in an abandoned village. In the distance, there is a group of men on horseback heading toward Constantinople. Anna hides from them until they are gone and follows a stream away from the ocean. She tries not to think about what she has left behind and sleeps fitfully through the day.

Anna begins traveling again, but she becomes very hungry. In the middle of the night, she finds a small fire with a bird roasting above it on a spit. There appears to be nobody there, but her hunger motivates her to take the bird before she fully checks her surroundings. Omeir strikes her before she can bite down.

Folio P

Although very little of this folio survives, what remains highlights the beauty and extravagance of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Crow-Aethon finds endless beauty and decadent foods and drinks in abundance. Aethon meets a hoopoe bird, who is “the vice undersecretary to the viceroy of Provisions and Accommodations” (455), an intentionally ridiculous title. The hoopoe welcomes Aethon to the realm.

Zeno: Lakeport, ID; 1972-2019

After his return from London, Zeno spends his time caring for Mrs. Boydstun. She remains as unkind to Zeno as she has always been. Zeno hopes she might acknowledge the time and care he has given her or “share [...] any memories of his father” (461), but she does not. Zeno occupies himself with Greek translations. He writes to Rex and asks him questions about his translations. Rex does not reply “quickly or regularly” (460), which makes Zeno feel foolish. He undervalues his work, always passing himself off as uneducated. One day, Hillary informs Zeno of Rex’s death. Zeno is devastated.

After Zeno retires, he works on his translations in the library. In May 2019, “a little nine-hundred-year-old goat leather codex” is found in the Vatican library (472), and new technology makes the text legible again despite its deterioration. The codex contains the Cloud Cuckoo Land folios. Zeno recognizes this title from Rex’s Compendium. Zeno begins the process of translating Cloud Cuckoo Land. At first, the translation work goes well, but then Zeno begins to doubt himself again. He feels he cannot escape the labels given to him in the past.

Konstance: The Argos; Mission Year 64; Day 276 inside Vault One

Konstance opens the owl book drop box in the Atlas, and things begin to change, which is not supposed to happen in the Atlas. She sees the old library appear where it was in 2020, and she asks Sybil what is going on. Sybil does not respond, something that Konstance has never experienced before. She enters the old Lakeport Library, follows the set decorations upstairs into the children’s library, and finds the copy of Cloud Cuckoo Land translated by Zeno Ninis on the stage.

Folio Σ

At first, Crow-Aethon enjoys his life in Cloud Cuckoo Land. He listens to the other birds sing, eats all he wants, and nobody is ever mean to him. Yet he wonders about his home in Arkadia and if it is worth it to live in a place so “magnificent.” Aethon begins to doubt if he should stay there for the rest of his life.

Konstance: The Argos; Mission Year 65; Day 325 inside Vault One

Konstance copies Zeno’s translations onto her homemade paper. She spends her days appeasing Sybil, then using the Atlas to go the old Lakeport Library. Sybil still refuses to let her out. Konstance is determined to learn about the kids Zeno saved on February 20, 2020 in the Lakeport Library. She learns that Rachel Wilson, one of the children in the play, is her great-grandmother, which is why Konstance’s father had Zeno’s translation of Cloud Cuckoo Land in his childhood room.

Konstance visits two of her favorite locations in the Atlas and finds owl triggers in both that reveal more suffering beneath censored images. She goes to Nannup and watches armed guards protect a water supply tank while desperate civilians wait around it. She understands why her father left. Next, Konstance researches the Argos. She searches for documents to prove that the Argos’s mission is possible but cannot find anything. She learns that the Argos was constructed in Qaanaaq, Greenland and travels there in the Atlas, searching for an owl trigger. When she finds and touches it, the Argos appears still under construction; however, “there are no rockets; there is no launchpad” at the site (500). The Argos was never launched from Earth. It has all been falsified.

Zeno: Lakeport, ID; August 2019

When the library becomes overrun with children during wildfire season, Marian asks Zeno to occupy a group of five 10-year-olds with his translation work. He reluctantly obliges. As he explains the text’s origin and plot, the children ask him why he bothers to translate such an old and strange story. Zeno answers, explaining to himself as much as the children why it is so important, and they all realize that it is a noble task to translate a formerly-lost book and reclaim its knowledge that would otherwise be lost. In doing this, Zeno sees that he has been too hard on himself. In addition to undervaluing his work, he has also been too rigid in his interpretations of the text. One goal of his work is to create a translation that is faithful to the text, but the original intention of the text was to be interesting and funny. Zeno gains a renewed commitment to his project.

Folio T

Crow-Aethon wonders why he feels so sad in Cloud Cuckoo Land when everyone else seems happy. The hoopoe tells him that these thoughts sound like a human’s and suggests that Aethon goes to the palace to read from the goddess’s book of all the knowledge to gain the insight he needs.

Seymour: Lakeport, ID; August 2019-February 2020

Seymour begins talking to “Mathilda,” the screen name of one of Bishop’s alleged affiliates, via “Pryva-C,” an online “secure messaging platform” (507). Seymour asks to join them, and Mathilda lies about Bishop’s army living together on a compound. Seymour develops an infatuation with Mathilda, even though he knows her only by her username. Bunny decides to sell their trailer and property, which further motivates Seymour to pursue a life in Bishop’s army.

Seymour must complete an extremist task to join Bishop’s army. He decides to bomb Eden’s Gate Realty to get justice for Trustyfriend. He will plant the bombs in the library because it is next to the realty office. Mathilda supplies him with instructions on how to make a bomb. She vaguely explains that Seymour should “head north” after he detonates the bombs and claims that if anything goes wrong, Bishop’s army will come to help him.

Zeno: Lakeport, ID; August 2019-February 2020

Zeno and the five children decide to make Cloud Cuckoo Land into a play. He feels that “for the first time since the days with Rex in Camp Five” his life has an undeniable purpose (511). Together, with the help of Marian and Sharif at the library, they prepare scripts, costumes, and props for the performance. Like Aethon, whose name means “blazing” and who burns with passion to find Cloud Cuckoo Land despite the odds, Zeno burns with passion for the performance and the translation that he and the children create.

Folio Y

Crow-Aethon goes to the palace to visit the goddess and read her book. The goddess knows he is a human, and Aethon meekly claims he only wants to see her book. She says he may read the book, but if he reads the whole thing, he can never return to his human form.

Omeir and Anna: Eight miles west of Constantinople; May-June 1453

Omeir has just struck Anna with a branch. He can tell she comes from Constantinople and binds her hands. He examines her possessions in her sack and is puzzled by the contents. They do not share a mutual language, so they cannot converse. It is safer if they travel together because it will appear that Anna is Omeir’s war spoils. He leads her by her bound hands, and they journey northwest. Weakened by traveling in the rain without food, Omeir sets traps to ensnare some food. Anna begins reading her codex when a group of small birds triggers the traps. Omeir thinks that the book summoned the food.

As they continue, news of Constantinople’s fall to the Ottomans reaches them. They arrive safely in the Rhodope mountains where Omeir and his family live. He takes Anna to “the half-hollow yew” tree to hide her belongings (534). Reluctantly, Anna allows Omeir to climb the tree and hide her belongings.

Folio Φ

Aethon reads the book of all knowledge. At first, he sees scenes of merriment and celebration and feels happy, but then he turns the page and finds only suffering. When confronted with these two opposing aspects of life, he considers how “beauty and ugliness” always coexist (537) and becomes afraid.

Zeno and Seymour: Lakeport Public Library; Lakeport, ID; February 20, 2020; 6:39 pm

Zeno and the children hide behind the bookshelves upstairs. Rachel suggests that Folios Φ and Ψ are out of order: The story should be organized so that Aethon reads from the goddess’s book and decides to go home. She argues that Aethon must go home so that the story can continue; if Aethon remains in utopia, there can be no further change. The other children and Zeno agree with her.

Seymour is back downstairs after Sharif lured him there. “His phone refuses to ring” with a call from Bishop’s army (543), and Seymour doubts they are coming to help him. When Zeno comes downstairs, Seymour recognizes him. Zeno approaches Seymour, picks up the backpack, and asks Seymour about the bombs. Seymour admits that there are others who could call the phones and detonate the bombs. Zeno tells Seymour that he will need to use one of his phones to call for help, but Seymour is dissociated from the scene. Before Zeno can all anyone, however, one of the detonator phones starts ringing.

Konstance: The Argos; Mission Year 65; Days 341-370 inside Vault One

After further research, Konstance is certain that the Argos never left Earth. She plans her escape: She makes an axe out of two of the legs of her bed frame and binds her handwritten version of Zeno’s Cloud Cuckoo Land into a book. She gathers some of her own hair into a cup, puts on her biohazard suit, and sits underneath her cot to shield herself. Then, she lights her cup of hair on fire with two wires. As the fire grows, Sybil gets very angry, demanding that Konstance stop. However, Sybil must open the vault doors before Konstance’s biohazard suit runs out of oxygen because Sybil’s primary directive is to protect the passengers above all else. Sybil opens the door as smoke fills the room.