I quite enjoyed this story, but like many others, I missed a few things at the beginning. I went ahead and listened to the whole thing through on the first time, piecing together the first 10 minutes or so as I went along.
On a relisten, I'd agree that the first 10-20 minutes of the story are maybe a bit slow or confusing, but they all do make sense. More importantly, my guesses after listening to the last 3/4 of the story, having been confused initially, were spot on. I think most of you can figure it out.
This is not going to be in my top 10 or anything, even for this year, but it wasn't a bad story. It was just really long and had a confusing/dull start. Once you get past that start, the whole thing is very engaging, and the world interesting.
Also, no offense to anyone, but I'm not sure how you could not get that Sky, Earth, etc are proper nouns. It seemed self-evident from context, but also from the voice, at least to me. I would suggest that the inability to determine that Sky was a proper noun is certainly not universal, and may be more subjective than an objective failing of the narrator, whom I liked well enough.