The Altonevers

by Frederic Merbe

  She’s overcome with a sensation that's strange to her, of her mind overflowing from her head and washing through her body. Thinking for a second that her psyche is breathing heavy heaving breathes and superseding her five senses in perceiving the reality of pulsating particles she is presently immersed in. Feeling as though she feels each passing speck of the lightening yellow breeze washing through her as though she’s only a filter, with no skin, flesh or bones of her own. Striding behind Cider, the two continue tip toeing along the edge of the curb, around the bustling crowds of Central's famously fashionable particle people. The people are particle popping tens at a time, from a simple stroll down the sidewalk to then instantly dispersing, disappearing from their places mid stride, popping out of persistence and reconstituting anywhere across the entirety of Centrals endless eternity. Re-appearing, though a few seconds later, and a few steps along their previous paths.

  A wind brimming with tiny droplets of glimmering space-time sweeping in whipping swells whips through valleys of vibrant often vitreous fluorescent facades, crosses their squinting faces while strolling along the rivers of passing opaque pedestrians. A soccer ball sized white sphere flying a hundred feet above, is cleaving through the yellowing orange ambient like thrown boulder. Pushing and bending light and matter around it, leaving a cylindrical wake of refraction spreading to a thousand foot wide trail through the ambient behind it. to Anna and Cider the windows and walls and sky blur through the cylindrical wake like their looking at a slowly spraying burst of water.

  Proceeding a series of long transparent swarming streaks diagonally descending through the blurring ambient, following miniature asteroids whose mass and trails of burning energy, only visible at certain angles, of pink contrails skipping in and out of the now yellow atmosphere. Coming in and out of view while streaking across the sky to collide, exploding as only blast waves, into the sides of skyscrapers throwing continually fracturing chunk of mineral. Sometimes skidding across rooftops like stones over water while forcefully shattering the megalithic lattice of the structures, and rumbling holographic echoes through the ether. Raining their faces as debris splashing into the ground as ripples and larger reverberations reaching amplitudes of tens, to hundreds of yards high and low. The people usually glide about their day undisturbed by the massive array of undulations passing almost unnoticed under their feet.

  Anna’s admiring the look of a twenty story pale blue brick constructed Cathedral at the end of a street, that’s edging a large geometrically intricate intersection, when a holographic comet crashes through its upper floors, blowing the whole side to a bursts of pulverized stone and rubble. The scene blinks in and out of visibility with every other blink of her fluttering awestruck eyes. Exploding outward and meeting a white sphere standing at the other side of the street that eagerly absorbs while bending, blurring and blending the burst of blue rubble into splashing patterns orbiting around it's matter devouring spherical sphere. Saving the building beside it from a battery of form shattering blue stone pulverulance and shrapnel. The long silver poles of the next intersection's traffic lights are stretching a mile into the air. Suspending six red, green and yellow lights converging into the shape of a spider whose feet step, stomping lightly around the passing crowds of pedestrians and cars. Anna looks around, eye shopping and window watching the passersby in the rows of the glowing glass storefronts lining all of the undulating street. Each row of stores is an amalgam of cultures from all the Altonevers over, converging into just one city block of Central's forever undulating, endless avenues.

  At the next crosswalk is a horizon park to their right with light gray arches and pillars in sluggish rotation around its distant center. Spanning a few square mile chunk of what once was sprawling city, now reduced and reducing into flat disks of dust and debris interlaced with freely suspended cobblestone paths lined with trees. Lit by plasma percolating gas lamps that are skipping along the many different rings of dust spiraling around in the gravitational grasp of an active, slowly churning ice cream truck sized gravity well.

  “What's going on there?” she asks.

  “That, that’s some kind of singularity suspending a park that it will eventually be washing out of existence. So they made some pathways and planted some trees, then called it a washing park. Standard really, unless it gets rezoned.”

  “A washing park?” she asks.

  “Yeah all that stuff will be eaten, devoured by a gravity well. Here they call it a washing, if you haven't noticed there fairly common,” he says.

  “Yes. I have”.

  “First time in the big city, with its big billboards, bustling with beautiful people, popping in and out, and being vapor, liquid or crystal. It must be very exciting,” he says.

  “I didn't see anyone that is the three,” she says.

  “Look around, and closer, they all are,” he says, and she looks, seeing the swathes of people shifting through phase around her line of sight and peripheral, and with even the most subtle twitch of her pupil. She takes to swiping her eyes rapidly back and forth for fun, rolling through the crowds of quickly shifting phases. Then spinning her eyes in her head, trying to get a glimpse of a single person as a mix of four phases at the same time, until she blinks. Resting her eyes for a split second at a time, refreshing the way she's conceiving what's around her each time she opens them feeling as though she's leaping to a different vantage of the reality around her, even when standing in the same place. The colors seem slightly different and the shapes more or less crisp, she can't really tell, though the ever present presence of pulsating particles enveloping her in what is perceivable remains regardless of her perspective. The two continue along Central’s massive pathways of mellifluously undulating pavement heading to nowhere in particular.

  The two become peckish, peeking through the front windows of shops, sniffing about for a suitable place to eat with their eyes. Feasting on the different sensual pleasures presented through each new pane of glass, until eventually coming to a bakery. The daylight bakery, with shapes and colors of cookies and pastries that all look little suns and celestial things.

  The atmosphere high above the skyline are transitioning to the lightest shades of muted blues and violet, come to resemble a ceiling of scattered cirrostratus clouds conforming into a semi-spherical pattern. Aligning to the polarity of a massive internally churning cumulonimbus seeming as a silver monument crowning the dwindling bright but dimming yellow orange particles below. The shift in ambient color resembles sands of different hues sifting until one overtakes the other. Presently passing from vermilion into yellow then into and electric blue to barely violet hues of a Central day falling into a semblance of night.

  For several minutes the two are licking the windows with their eyes gawking at the delicacies of the Daylight bakery as though their eyes are on an incredible edible adventure of their own. Anna’s tongue's salivating at a platter of big round raspberry linzer tarts, as Cider's smiling like a wolf over an oven of piping hot apple pies. They slide their panting mouths across the glass like sucker fish toward the door, in utter anticipation of their coming feast of sweets. Cider swings the wooden door open to show the interior of a flower shop overflowing with polychromatic light exciting flower petals. Anna's still looking at the sweet delectables of the window display, while at the same time smelling the primal passion pleasing pungent aromas pouring from bunches of versicolor rays of an array floral bouquets visible as prismatic auras wafting through the open door.

  “Cider,” she says sounding perplexed.

  “Yeah?” he asks, turning to see her confused yet bemused rose shaded face.

  “There's no tarts in here,” she says, trailing off. “Maybe the florist knows a good place to eat.”

  “Okay,” he agrees thinking the girl wants a flower, he holds the door open and waves for her in. She slowly steps down the center aisle, immersing herself in the taste's of the bakers oven, though instead in skin enrapturing shimmering gold pollen permeating the small ceda
r walled room. Seeping into her skin and through her open eyes while her nostrils bath in moist, instinct pleasing scents. The room is filled with a plethora of wildflowers, many with inkblot patterns and vibrant versicolor pedals collected into barely tamed bell shaped and spiral bouquets. Many of them are wiggling around curling and unfurling while brimming with bows of radiance radiating through a room saturated with shimmering gold pollen.

  Thimble sized suns are in spinning orbit just under the ceiling and showering the flowers with their light. Giving every aspect of the flowers a flourishing aura that lives on lucidly in the memory of any person to see them. Spread throughout the floral shop is fresh water flowing in cylindrical paths floating a foot over the waterfall patterns of walls of flowers. The dripping droplets of clear fluid that bounce and speckle the petals with light glistening water beads.

  Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk!

  “Wonder what that is?” he asks.

  “I don’t know?” she answers.

  “They are the soles of my feet meeting the dried flesh of trees long deceased, yes, slain by things with the limbs to do so, oh yes they were,” says the soft toned voice of a weathered old woman who's leaning on a cane to stand in front of the two. The wildlife excitedly emanates a resonating vibrancy, seeming enchanted by her presence, omniscient to their mindless leaves and vines.

  “Oh hi, this is a very nice lot of flowers you have,” Anna says.

  “Yes. All freshly picked from the fields of flora growing over the last melting remains of felled skyscrapers. Plucked when the protean ground is in a few minutes of stillness. The perfect time to get a pristine plasma rose or gamma ray tulip, with just the right light ultraviolet's. I plucked this lot a few hours ago, and just a few avenues over, maybe you’ve seen it?” The elderly florist asks.

  “We have,” Anna says as Cider looks for a flower that he supposes will be perfect from him for Anna.

  “Or not,” the elderly florist speaks over Carrots and continues, “the skyscraper spilling to its ground whence it came to replenish the black beneath, and rise as flourishing beds of effulgent wildflowers.” The florist says then rambles on through rising and falling barely coherent mumbles, “have you ever wondered why there is gold in the mellifluous ground?” the florist eventually asks. The two look to each other quizzically, scratching their heads and shrugging in wonder if the elderly woman with iris' of blue flame can even hear them.

  “Excuse me,” Anna says, interrupting the purple coat wearing wrinkled woman from her spouting stream of consciousness murmurs, to reply, “you are if you like dear,” then returning to her mumbles of an honest old mind.

  “Excuse me,” says Cider then repeats insistently, bringing the woman to a puzzled stop.

  “Well, yes what is it, would you like some flowers for your girlfriend here?” the florist asks, while blankly looking to her pixie cut hair.

  “Yes I would actually, what do you suggest?” he asks as smoothly as he can, though his voice scratches with nervousness as he speaks.

  “Oh, you're the boy ahahaha,” the woman points to Cider, “I thought you weren't, aha my eyes are dwindling, but serving me well as they do. I take delight in seeing, but I could see that you my boy, you must be the one who chooses a flower for such a bee as this one is to you,” the florist says smirking, while jabbing at Anna's shin with her cane. Then struggling for a long moment to lift the stick up, and tap her softly on the top of her orange hair, “Ow, hey,” she laughs rubbing her head saying, “but, we thought this was a bakery, it seemed a lot like a bakery through front windows.”

  “But it isn't, it's a simple flower shop. Hmm! Haha, do you think everything should be is as it seems. I wonder if you’re seeing things the right way. Hmm. Why? do you always believe that what you can perceive allows you to conceive the entirety of the existential spectrum of the present that you persist in?” the elderly florist says, and crickets croak in the silence of the dumbfounded two.

  “Well do you? Ach, nonsense of the young ones with their eager hearts and impatient souls,” the florist scoffs.

  “I dunno we really only stumbled in search of some sweets to eat,” Anna says apologetically, as charmingly as she can.

  “Aaah. Ah, Honey, alot of honey,” the woman shouts, “I’d always seen amorously, the sweetness of nature’s alchemy,” she says gleefully pulling a hunk of raw honeycomb from her pocket, that's dripping in sticky amber and magenta honey.

  “Broken fresh from the juiciest, most succulent part of the hive. Are you hungry?” the florist asks already holding the hunk of honey in Anna's face.

  “I wouldn't want to be rude,” Anna says holding her hand.

  “Ahh, don't be silly it would be nice,” says the elderly florist, who's overjoyed just to have any company at all. Her beaming face rubs her elation onto the wayward two, and the three take delight in chomping healthy chunks of honeycombs dripping with thick sticky goo. The florist blue eyes twinkle with the joy of sharing what delights her, enriching the experience shared by the three. The stickiness of their hands and faces isn't deterring the two from eating a second and a third honey filled chunk of tiny glistening hexagons. Only now Anna notices a bunch of bee's buzzing about under the tiny suns, most of which have no stingers. Each carefully making it's pick of the pristine pedals with the nectar and design of nature sweetest to them. She watches one bee engorging itself, growing several times bigger than waddling around the florist a few times before buzzing through a small shadowy hall behind the elderly florist. Another whizzes past her head, frantically leaping on and off Anna’s orange hair, and sits on her shoulder for a second then buzzes off.

  “Here,” Cider says, setting his eyes on a delicately designed yellow and vermilion spawn. A vibrant hybrid of a thorny rose and a radial blood sunflower. He's intensely focused on having to reach with an open hand through a small opening in the flowing wall of wildflowers to his right. Using all his learned dexterity not to touch the thorns or disturb the feasting swarms of small ballooning bee's.

  “Oh, ah some of those are poisonous er, mm. Be careful not to prick your fingers, aha,” the florist laughs.

  “Which ones?” he asks as a bead of pollen sweetened sweat hovers on his right eyebrow.

  “Oh, I don't remember, but some, all are blearily colored to me,” the florist says.

  “How poisonous?” Anna asks.

  “What dear?”

  “How poisonous ar…”

  “Oh, aha, very venomous. Some of them will drop you dead on the spot, others will numb you and kill you slowly on your feet, all sorts of natures lethal serums to living.”

  “Very helpful,” he says.

  “You're welcome,” the florist answers earnestly, eager to get back to eating the next hunk of hive from her lilac robes bottomless pocket.

  Almost got it, he thinks.

  “Almost got it?” she asks.

  “Almost Anna,” he answers, feeling for his choice of flora for her with the diligence of a pickpocket and the patience under pressure of a safecracker.

  “Special, a thing it is to pick a flower for the heart of another, careful not to prick your finger,” the florist says. Cider ponders his choice in not choosing one he thinks she will like, but instead one that he likes and wondering if it will be a good way to see if she sees as he does. His lip’s sweating hot while trying not to think of the potentially lethal barbs his hand is barely grazing, scraping but not breaking his skin.

  “Would you like some milk to wash down the honey?” the elderly florist asks.

  “No, thank you though,” she answers.

  “Are you sure? it will get the glue from your mouth. It's fresh, the cats in the alley always like it.”

  “It's okay, thank you,” Anna says.

  “Hmm okay...do you know the simple joy of picking a flower? especially for one precious to the other,” the elderly woman asks her while swatting softly at and just missing Anna's shins with her lacquered cane.

  “How do you mean?” A
nna asks.

  “The meaning of the sentiment,” the florist says.

  “Uhhh.”

  “Of the act of one desiring to do something with honest intentions to please another, especially for one that is dear to them?” the florist says.

  “That was a question?” Cider strains to ask, his face is focusing in pain and painted red as an apple, while Anna ponders the elderly woman's words for their purpose.

  “I Think…I know what you mean, but I'm confused by how you're saying it,” she mumbles and bites her bottom lip.

  “Hmm you do? do you? not everything is meant to be understood by one as it is to others, or immediately for that matter. Though that is if do you believe what you conceive of what you are perceiving in the present?” the florist trails to mutters.

  “Wait, what?” Anna says.

  “Oh! hahaha, is your head on straight? anyway, to use one's will as a sincere expression of one's being to excite the soul of the other. To see them smile inside and out and know joy, and to share the experience with them,” the florist says.

  “That's a very nice thought to have and thank you,” Anna smiles as her mind is delightfully drinking in the elderly warm words.

  “Oh yes yes, the sentiment in even the simple act of plucking a flower from the sediment, is to me, a moment thriving with more life than any other I’ve ever known. Especially when searching for the perfect pedals to portray what has pollinated and grown inside one’s self. A simple fruit of life, but so fragile and rarely ripened,” the age woman says.

  They continue casually chatting while Cider's been holding his breath for nearly a minute, with his right arm stretched out, keeping it as still as he can with his left. The worn wooden floor creaks as he's slowly creeps toe to heel backwards, trying to free his arm unharmed by the possibly poisonous thorns with the flower of his choice for her in his hand. The aureate pollen and amber nectar is coating his midnight blue sleeve up to his shoulder. Taking almost three tense minutes of intense focus to finally show the slender emerald stem held in his fingertip. Then slowly unveiling the lemon yellow light of the underside of the sun flowering rose’s radial rose petals.