User:DoctorWho42/The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D

"The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D" is a short story by English author J. G. Ballard. It was first published in the December 1967 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Plot
The cloud-sculptors at Vermilion Sands carve out cloud images above the coral towers. Coral D is the tallest of the four, which are beside the highway to Lagoon West. People in cars spectate. Cloud-sculptures would usually be animals or portraits. Major Raymond Parker arrived to Vermilion Sands three months before. He was a pilot with a broken leg. He stopped by the coral towers. He hears singing and sees the sonic statues near an abandoned studio. Nearby, he would build kites and later gliders. He meets two people: Petit Manuel, an acrobat; and Nolan, an artist. Nolan says he'll build gliders to begin work. Parker teaches them how to fly. The tourist season ends and they perform to an empty highway. Van Eyck makes a horse's head. Manuel makes a parody of Van Eyck's. Nolan makes a child's face. He isn't satisfied and turns it into a skull. The spectators are upset. Parker decides maybe it's time to end things. In a limousine, a secretary asks if they perform elsewhere. She tells him Leonora Chanel is staying at Lagoon West for the summer. Chanel wants them for her parties. The condition is Chanel chooses the subject. The secretary tells him she is Beatrice Lafferty. Chanel was married to an aristocrat. His suicide casts a shadow on Chanel's fame. They perform for Chanel. Later, Lafferty shows Parker all of Chanel's portraits. An unframed portrait depicts her as dead Medea. It has Nolan's signature. At the party, Van Eyck and Manuel introduce themselves. Chanel asks why Nolan surrounds himself with cripples. Van Eyck, Manuel, and Nolan each do portraits. Nolan's is lifelike but too lifelike. Before the last party, storm clouds brew. Parker asks Lafferty to come live with him. A minute into the performance Van Eyck is winged. Chanel asks why Nolan isn't out there. Manuel volunteers. He does an unflattering portrait but clouds swallow him. Debris rain down. After, Lafferty and Parker look for Manuel's body. They find it but a tornado stirs. Nolan guides it with a glider towards Chanel's villa. It destroys the villa. They find Chanel dead wrapped in canvas from her portraits. They find Van Eyck strangled by wiring. They never find Nolan. Later, Lafferty and Parker live together at the studio near Coral D. They receive a report of cloud-sculptures above Red Beach. They wait for Nolan to return as they hear the sonic statues sing.

Reception
In 1967, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction editor Edward L. Ferman called it "a haunting tale." In 1969, Science Fiction Review's Richard E. Geis decided it "arty junk, cast in a stereotyped mainstream plotform of "poetic" and "delicate" texture." In 1970, Analog Science Fiction and Fact's P. Schuyler Miller noted "The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D" as "one of his haunting Vermilion Sands stories."