*****
Strangely enough, the next day I was not led off to die. Nor were we anywhere near the planet Earth, which greatly excited me. When we arrived at my new home of Zambawa City on the planet Calarian, I was stricken like thunder by its sheer, raw, unbridled beauty – a world of statuary, of a blazing golden green and all other colors, richly stark virginity beyond compare, constantly changing to the flickering lights of a carefully and respectfully kept illuminated darkness.
It was just like San Francisco used to be when you entered her at night, the brilliant sparkling skyline drifting majestically into view, all the beckoning myriad lights of an unsurpassable distance. I was finally going to live in it forever, or so I wished to myself.
Arching like a vanguard above me was a robin’s egg blue sky. The pollution of darkling clouds of any nature was gone, and the air smelled so fresh and clean I instantly gasped lungfulls of it, like a hungry shark gulping fish. Huge and sprawling coniferous forests swallowed the obviously distant and soul-beseeching mountains, with receding and comfortably well-placed small towns in the valleys, spaced expertly between the spreading meadows and available flatland greens.
I thought I saw a magnificent scientific laboratory observatory, off to the left. Zambawa City, as we entered its sweetly downtown area, was packed with small and curving graceful round domiciles, and wide open tree-lined cobblestone streets. I suddenly thought of them renaming it “Sleepless City,” due to the ever-present domed brightly twilight sky.
Ikonor had already explained to me how the past, merged neatly with the future, had simply left our people motionless, giving us a way to stay stable in time. He did not blame any of my actions for the presence of the Draconians, none of which were in sight anywhere. But the destructive nature of their presence permeated the whole area, full of many signs of death, down to the very structuring of the buildings.
They had left scars on the people of the town, scars on the sidewalks, scars on each building’s walls that could be seen by all awakened eyes, many other than mine. Everything was designed to be a shelter in a storm, beautiful, but stonily and deathly silent.
The tallest, most strikingly artistic structure in the peacefully lit and overwhelmingly sunny downtown was a huge oxygen generating tower called the “Big Southern Belle.” The O-tower made the planet habitable by all the Kellian people.
They needed air blended with concentrated 30% oxygen, in contrast to the 21% oxygen that humans like me needed. Having been told that much, I could not understand what I was doing being alive at all, then laughed aloud, realizing that I would be automatically “high” on oxygen for the rest of my existence in the alluringly splendid city! Possibly, it would build up my muscle and stamina, to prepare me for what lay ahead. Everyone looked very well-exercised, and someone would surely hand me the equipment, the encouragement, and the time that I desperately needed. I had completely accepted whatever challenge would come before my new people, whatever idiocy would continuously menace and evade me. I would live and die defending us, wife or no wife.
Woody Allen Makes A Scary Sandwich - Horror Pastiche, Stories & Poems Page 4