Cloud report: 1/12/08 11.08am, Clapham Common

Ayo (www.myspace.com/ayoyoueverything): There wasn’t very much of you, just a little puff of smoke in the sky and you weren’t moving very fast compared to the others. The wind was blowing hard and fast and brutally cold at ground level but you didn’t notice. My twin and I were on a bench below you, tracking your progress. You seemed blissfully unaware of these identical watchers. You are unique-I am not romanticizing you. You are a cloud. Let me spend some time describing you so we can be sure it is you. You are messily edged, hopefully faint, elongated. You are disappearing behind a small coppery half fallen tree like a last breath from an arctic animal. Now you have disappeared. I feel as if I didn’t get a very good sense of you and will make amends for this when you return. The wind is a powerful thing for clouds and the wind will bring you back to me. I remember you like a snake that has eaten a rat. I am thinking of Riki Tiki Tavi who was eaten by a snake.

You have returned- only __ words separated us and now you’re back. My twin writes freely of your uniqueness but I feel my hands solidifying in the cold. You have changed shape. You are whiter than before. Maybe I should have studied The cloud spotter’s guide before this expedition. I am confused, another cloud has appeared from behind your tree. It looks more like you than the other. Was I mistaken? Are there many of you too? Waiting for me a series of identical clouds-a mirror in the sky of what is below. What’s this-have you been blown into a void? You have disappeared or have you joined another mass in the sky? Was it lonely in your own cloud? Did you seek company on this bright icy day or have you receded backwards into oblivion at warp speed?

You are an exceptional cloud. I wonder what my identikit-kat is writing. Have her eyes penetrated deeper into you? I am losing your memory again-the messy fragmented edges, the partial opacity. I am in the Lake District in Coniston water in another time. I am not romantic. Cloud in your short blustery moment of fixity what did you see from above? What did you think? Were you aiming for something other-another continent? Did you look down on us and laugh because you knew how hard it would be to capture this ephemeral. I think you were probably flattered. Was this the first time you have been written about? Now you have been multiplied beyond your dreams in this scrappy little notebook. You will last forever.

Oni(www.myspace.com/iamtheoneandoni): First seen above two houses, next to a church – moving slowly, very slowly over Elspeth Road, ahead more houses, more roads, planes flying above you, faint, close to not being there at all, your whiteness increases from left to right, although your edges are unclear and you seem to drift into the blue, struggling to distinguish yourself from your surroundings, like a smudge across the sky, slim, squashed, a floating landscape – if you could be walked upon you would be uneven mountain ground (suitable for goats). And now you change shape as though you’re being dragged thru a hole – distorted, now I have lost sight of you behind a tree in the foreground, you are lost will you return? I will describe the thing that obscures you, a small tree: about the height of the world’s tallest man - with yellow leaves straining to remain attached to their branches, leaves blown parallel to the ground, behind the tree another tree and houses too. Where are you – dissipated? Should I continue to write about everything around you – except you? Will that reveal you? By the time you emerge from behind the tree will you have mutated so much that I no longer recognise you – or will I mistake you for another cloud and write for another 100 words or so about an imposter – or would it be better to cease writing about what I see of you and write of the memory of you before you fade not only from sight but mind as well? The person next to me has said, then asked “I’m confused. Is that our cloud?” I replied, “You need to write the confusion.” The sky seems so pale now, generally whitetish – the same colour and tone I remember you being… if you have passed from behind the trees you’ve entered a colour the same as you, how will I find you among the bluey-white? And now, where you should be is cloudless, there is the gentlest hint of something or the other, but this is far less clear than the birds, planes, vapour trails, joggers, mothers with children, trees, noises of planes and cars – all the things more physical than you. So now, perhaps all that remains of you is my description of you, of your drifting, of your shape and finally the report of your disappearance.

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Identical twins Ayo and Oni Oshodi are emerging Bexhill-based artists and writers of Nigerian origin.

Cloud Report is a light-hearted exploration of twin-ship and modern mass production through the subjective recording of a fleeting unique experience. This article was commissioned for the Royal College of Art publication ARC Spring 2007.