The land that lies ahead of the Brontide cloud is unknowable. It's untouchable and it's lined with booby traps. It reaches and it snakes, the speedometer hooking into a reliably burning speed, something that's not going to let up, that's just going to keep blasting, heavy on the floor, rubber to metal and rubber to asphalt. The land and the sky that lie ahead could be sheered out of an afternoon that's pregnant with acid rain. You can see the purple in its gills, the sick to its stomach feel oozing out of the belly of those clouds that hover like cuddly surveillance cameras. It doesn't feel like there's a sea nearby, just miles and miles of unmovable hills and ditches. The ditches are overgrown with years of weeds, with countless artifacts of drivers - cigarette butts, aluminum cans and McDonalds wrappers. There are the skeletons of animals that no one remembers, resting forever with hubcaps, rabbit turds, tires and a little trickle of a stream.
William Bowerman, Nathan Fairweather and Tim Hancock make these moments able to be felt, even if you're stuck indoors, if you can't get out, trapped in a cubicle and feeling like you're suffocating on all of that recycled air that's captured all of the allergens, all of the faint praises of cologne and perfume, all the scents from the community microwave and coffee machine. These are moments when you feel small and cramped and, just then, the roof is cracked off the top of the drab building and everything within it - you and all of your shit - is exposed. You can see the dark stuff off to the west and you're unsure of what to do next. You hear the church bells tolling 6 pm or the reveille coming from the government's island at 10 pm and you're sure that something's coming. You can almost hear it making its way. You're positive it's bigger than you and it will reach right in and take you. You're thinking about not kicking, screaming or biting when it does. You're considering just accepting it.