I got out of my bed and walked around. I walked into my bathroom, and shut the door turning on the water only to be hit with warmth. This is what I had missed the most about my real home. With my real family. That I could do anything I wanted in my room and not feel like I was being watched by a camera, or monitored with a cuff only to be drugged every moment I thought about doing something I wasn’t supposed to.
I stepped out of the shower and got an alert on my watch, “Hey! It is Sam for Toodles! Thought I would message you to catch up. Want to meet me at my dad’s café this weekend? I am available tomorrow if you want to take the train in, and I can get you at the station.” She had typed.
I replied, “Yes. I would love to come out and hang with you at Toodles. Let me ask my parents, and maybe they will let me go. I will let you know as soon as I can.” I hit send.
I felt a rush of happiness.
I left my room. I got out to my living room, and my mom was standing in the corner of the kitchen reading a magazine on her tablet with a long menthol cigarette hanging out of her mouth. My dad was sitting on the couch, speaking to the TV trying to find a show to watch that wouldn’t instantly make him doze off into a nap. Angela was somewhere. It didn’t really matter to me at that moment. I don’t really think I cared where she was anyways.
“Mom, Sam is a girl I met at a bakery in New York City asked if I wanted to meet up with her there tomorrow? Her dad lives there, I could probably spend the night too.” I stated, hopeful.
Instantly, she had a look of dismay. I knew she would say no. “Look Luis, we had this conversation, and I know your dad would say no too, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. We were all going to take a trip there to relieve some stress, but with all the “Statewide Emergencies” and such, it just isn’t a good idea anymore.” She puffed on her cigarette, flicking at the screen page to page.
I’d like to think she wouldn’t be the kind of person to smoke, but she puff puffed on and flicked, flicked, flicked. I tried not to lose my mind, and had the best assertion.
“What if I brought someone? A friend, and what if they drive me to New York City, and they rent out a hotel room?”
“I would make an exception, who is it?” She asked, sucking in longer on that puff than normal. “His name is Tommy. He is one of my old friends from long ago before I left, and he is really nice and has his own Cadillac. He’d totally be up for it. It seems these days people are too lame to be his or my friend, so it made it a great opportunity for him and I.
“Sure, you can go. Just let me know when you two leave tomorrow so I know where you are.” She smiled, and then went into a dismal unhappy look. She sucked in one hard last time, and blew it out in straight clouds. The ashes trickled off the end of the menthol onto the floor, burning a small hole into the laminate and spat, “Damnit, why can’t we just have fucking tile for once, like normal damn people?”
I shook my head and scurried back into my room.
I sat down, and looked at my phone. I typed a message to Sam saying I could come with a friend. I am sure she would love to meet Tommy.
I looked out the window. I saw the beauty of snowflakes; however, it became stranger and stranger as I realized the flakes blue and red. “What the hell was wrong with Planet KS?” I thought.
Everyone had to have realized there was something different about this place. The sky was changed, the clouds were a dark. The color, the sun was in a different spot, where was the moon? Their shame, their ability to see past what Unity was hiding. That was why those girls fried their hair bright white, why the men bleached and stripped their teeth of enamel, who those boys wanted Botox, and why those models got liposuction. The thing was, people had been doing that since we were on Earth. It was only when I left, the world became estranged to its customs.
I sat on my bed again, staring outside. I wondered what they all thought was going on. Probably smog, or pollution, or maybe we were all tripping on acid, and this was the end of it all. This was the way Unity wanted to see us all end. That we had fought a war all for them, only for us to kill the one subject we thought would end the war, only for us to have all been betrayed. Worst yet, I bet the government didn’t even know what they were getting into. Whatever prize they received, whatever the world holds, it is big. Like Anthony said, “It holds so much value that one who possesses it, is the all-powerful.”
The sirens came on shouting a high-pitched sound. From in my room, from my walls, into my body through my shorts, and my head. It pierced everything around me in a quick moment.
“Attention Citizens of Planet Earth, Unity has instituted an “Official Emergency Shut Down” of all Interstellar Systems. Please standby, and stay in place during tis lockdown. Thank you.” The announcement cut off.
From the other room, my mom started to scream, “Well shit! If they cut the power one more time, I am going to bust into Unity and fucking beat Crysler to death!”
“What the hell.” I said under my breath. She had problems obviously a lot has changed besides the planet we are on.
My dad reassured her, “Honey, we are going to be fine. Just let them do what they need, so we can enjoy life. A few hours without power will be fine, we will lock the door, it is probably just a test.”
I continued to look out my window. As it closed, I saw something that startled me beyond belief. People in yellow suits riding bicycles down the streets. Lines and lines and lines, they all strolled down the sidewalks, one abruptly jerked his head looking at my window, I hoped it would shut quicker.
I talked to myself, “What the hell is wrong with this place? Who are these people?” Over and over, I asked myself questions hoping that someone would answer. Then the thing, whatever he was in his yellow suit, jumped off his bike, and like a spring jumped over closer and closer to my window. He was inches away from the glass. He tapped on the window, and then he just stood there. He smiled, and stared with a larger, scary smile into my room. I felt like the inches of space would never help stop the terrifying sensations that he had put himself right next to me in my room.
The window finally shut, and I sighed with relief, and hoped he wouldn’t stand there the entire time. From what I had seen, they all just rode around, hopped and looked into people windows. I didn’t see any harm in that. I guess that whatever they were up to, it wasn’t any good.
I had never seen anything like it before. The stress and all the catastrophe put me to sleep, and as dazed as I was, what I dreamt made me remember these creatures. Where they had lurked, and where my story would begin.
Dream
I woke up on the golden floor of a palace. I instantly knew where I was. It was Dunshop. The City of Flowers, and the home of the Emerald Rye Flower. The sweet honey-like smell reverberated like the time I took the Pod by accident to Dunshop.
I looked up and saw a man in a golden cloak with chocolate brown skin. His smile, the smell, the airy light, it made me feel so happy and good. I remembered the story so clearly. The Emerald Rye produced the scent of addicting honey vapors, vapors that drew the faith in, and the people who were stuck there like a cult.
The Emerald Rye was sniffed and consumed quickly. It created what the people describe as an enlightening high, or a “gateway to another pure place”. Most died there and got stuck in Dunshop the moment they stepped foot because they enjoyed it so intensely.
The man in the gold cloak held out his hand and said to me, “This is where you need to begin. Go, find the people who know the wrongs, find the perpetrators that have given fate to your people. Save Earth Luis, save your people. The All Mighty Dunshop Creator grants you access to the true beauties of KS.”
He kept smiling, and his softness allowed me to really figure in reality. “Really? You think so?” I asked.
“You can do anything you want. Just don’t fall for tricks and foolery.” He walked away.
As I stood, standing on that golden circle in the middle of the mountain City of Flowers, the little ye
llow people appeared, and I experienced nonetheless than a close up look of their kind. Unclothed, not human, skinny but not so skinny their hard-lining bones could be seen, naked and in two parts. The males protruded; women breasts like a human. They had no ears, and no belly or behinds. They were figments of what we could be.
They glided over to me, circling me until I couldn’t smell the Emerald Rye anymore. It was then that all turned black, and I bounced back to life, lying in my bed.
9
Every time I fell asleep and woke up, and the times before that, I woke up on my floor with dried something on my neck. I got up fast, so fast that I experienced a head rush.
I pulled out my phone, and sent a message to Tommy. “Tommy, I need you to take me to New York City. That girl Sam I told you about wants to hang out, but my mom won’t let me, she thinks it’s too dangerous, unless you go with me. If we take your car, we can leave whenever we want. Just let me know.”
I finished typing out the message, hoping I didn’t come off too needy. I decided it was a day for the books.
I sat at my desk. The power was back on, and the people in the yellow suits had disappeared. I was free and sane out of Dunshop.
As I ruffled through the papers on my bedside table, I saw a paper that in blue print had the word “Dunshop: Land of Mystery” on the front of it.
I wondered where I had gotten the flyer from. I asked myself, “Had it indeed existed?”
I had no clue. I wondered who, if not who, then why did I have it? I didn’t remember bringing anything back with me. It had to be a trap.
In an instant, a pounce of single vibration came from my leg. It was my phone again.
“Luis. This is Anthony. I need you to meet me in New York City’s National Library tomorrow. I can explain there.” I signed. Not because it seemed to arduous, but because it was unbelievable to me that of all people it would happen to. It was me, back in the same exact situation as before.
“Sure. Four o’clock” I replied.
I threw my phone at my window making a sharp crack sound and fell to the icy cold floor. Then again, the vibration and light came from the phone, an accepted message from Tommy saying he would come and get me soon.
In all frankness, I thought that the library in New York City was completely desolate of books. More modern poetry than anything with little worth in my opinion.
I packed my bags. I figured I’d be there for a day or two, so I packed several pairs of clothes just in case.
I slid my laptop into my bag and did not forget my charger just as this was essential if I needed any other forms of communication while meeting Anthony.
I hoped it wouldn’t take long, and that whatever he needed me to do meant that I could stay put while he went away to try to resolve the worlds problems.
It was Crysler’s fault. It was his fault and he knew it. I wish I could’ve killed him when I had a chance.
I could never kill anyone, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even hit the button and threaten the Councilor with all his people’s lives. I couldn’t press that button to extinguish their lives, to overdose their nervous systems with intoxicating anesthetics.
I remembered a poem I once read, it read:
Going and going
and going, and
then boom, there
went the plane.
My situation had put me in such a position, that I had to defy the sense of all temperatures and do what I had to do. I was going to kill President Crysler. No one could take away the rest of my life or anyone else because of greed or pride, whichever evil was at stake.
I filled with anger. I slammed my shit everywhere. I broke my phone, but not enough to stop the screen from lighting up.
Tommy said he was two minutes to arriving at my house despite being a minute walk away.
I packed a bag. I ran down the hall, through the kitchen into the living room. Where my mom stood lanky and tall, puffing away at her cigarette like it was the last she’d ever smoke.
“Are you out of here Luis?” She asked.
I replied, “Yeah, I am going now. Tommy will be here any moment.”
“Okay, just please be careful and please keep your phone on so if we need you, you’ll be quick to come back.”
I smiled, and despite her attitude, I walked up to hug her, dodging the cigarette. Her hug felt familiar, she pulled in hugging me like a mother would. In a way, I knew she was still the same loving mother she was before.
I let go, and looked at her. Her caked makeup had set into her wrinkles so far, her smooth smoker lines cursed around her lips. Her bleached hair, so perfect not even her roots could be seen, I needed to end whatever was happening in the world.
My dad finally turned away from the television and asked, “Are you out of here son?”
“Yes I am.” I said.
“Alright.” That was all he said and turned back toward the television. I wasn’t sure whether it was the absence of minds that set them in the direction they were going, or if it were the energy coming form the core of KS that mae all humans seem like they lacked substance.
I headed out the door, and the bright blue glass door slid open and then shut, as quick as ever before. I braced myself before I walked into the cold air.
The air seemed thin. The splotchy blue snow stained the sidewalks. It was acidic. It burned holes into the ground but didn’t burn my skin. It burned inorganic, not organic like i. it was a figure that they ran from, the enemies, the Councilor.
Tommy pulled into my driveway, smoothly riding the air like a surfer would on water.
He said, “Hey man, ready to go? I’ve been waiting to go on an adventure all fricking year. It’s been way too long.”
I responded, “Yeah, I didn’t really plan this out, but it is of some urgency. So, I am sorry that it was last notice. My parents. They wouldn’t let me go without someone with a car.”
Tommy replied, “I understand man, just let your bags in the back and keep whatever you need up here.”
I nodded my head and jumped in, watching my shoes trying not to scuff his cherry wood floors.
“Where exactly are we staying?” Tommy asked.
“We are staying at my friend Sam’s, her Dad’s bakery in the city. I forget the street, so when we get there I can tell you where to turn and all that.”
He smiled. “Sam. Short for Samantha?”
“Yeah, she is nice. I ended up in the city one night and saw the bakery. It was just so quaint and reminded me of home.”
“Isn’t this home?” Tommy asked. I wished that I hadn’t said anything.
“Yeah, this is home, it just felt like I had been there before I guess. Like a childhood thing kind of way. I went in there and ordered a really good meal. She sat down with me and talked. It was strange because I thought I knew who she was, like we had been friends for the longest time, but as it turned out we had always been in different places.”
Tommy asked, “What was she like?”
I remarked, “Pretty eyes, soft skin, her personality and smile lit up the room.”
He laughed, but not in a way that he meant to do harm.
“She sounds nice. I can’t wait to meet her.” He said. The conversation got boring. The car started to pull out, as it was preprogrammed to drive us to the city.
It was quiet for the entire drive. The air that came through the air vents was very dry. So dry that I felt like my lips would fall off and crawl away like a caterpillar.
I thought, who might be in charge now of the people who left this planet. I figured they had no idea they were off the planet they came from, KS. In a tragic way, no one really knew what had happen. The people from Earth on KS had no idea what occurred, and I bet the people on KS now on Earth are also unknowing of the true happenings.
“Do you have any Chapstick?” I asked awkwardly, not knowing whether he’d respond.
He replied, “Yeah, here. It’s actually unopened so you can keep it.�
��
Jokingly I stated, “then it’s good I don’t have to wonder if you have any viruses or infections.”
“HA! No, I don’t, thank goodness. I have been pretty fortunate to have been with some clean people.”
I asked, “How many girlfriends have you had?”
Tommy replied, “I’ve had one or two girlfriends, but the last one was crazy.”
“Ah, I see.” I said.
“I mean, I really want to date a girl it just seems I don’t have much time.”
I understood. “Yeah, I can see how it’s a lot of work and time consuming. I think if I had the time, I’d try to make things work with Sam. It’s the distance between us though that might make a relationship impossible.”
Tommy remarked, “It’s one of those, it comes and goes kind of deals. Sometimes I feel like sometimes I don’t. I think it’s better just to stay out of the relationship realm.”
I kept myself to responding, ‘Mhm.”
He reached out his hand and increased the volume on the radio.
So loud, but so soft, I began to wonder what is it with people and perfection? Is it their inability to be perfect, or their inability to see perfection; or their ability to ignore what is imperfect?
Three miles from the city, I prepared my bags and slipped out my notepad. I wrote down all that I needed to do at the hotel before we left to see Sam.
I opened the window ever so slightly that the cold dry air rushed over my face.
We pulled through the city, while the Cadillac carefully maneuvered through the streets.
“Finally! I never thought we’d arrive.” Tommy said. The doors flipped open, and two bell hops in red greeted us and asked if we’d like them to take our luggage.
We obliged and handed our bags over. Tommy said, “What a shit hole,” I laughed because he seemed serious.
We entered through the sliding glass doors. Large holograms towered the high lobby walls. The surrounding artifacts held color of purple and bright hues of green. Royalty.
The World of Hope Page 6
