Watercolor Flowers (a series)

C5: City With No Children

Chapter V: The New Eden 

(Watercolor Flowers by Austin Bryan)

Alicia thought that she may try to ignore the upcoming events. Just maybe, she can manage to find Robbie and have a normal life as was supposed to be. I'm just exhausted. I don't want to be a part of this anymore, Alicia thought in her mind. It isn't easy having so much weight on your arms. Having to bear the weight of so many lives, too many lives. She did not ever want to be pushed to making decisions that will cause one life or the other's. She did not ever want to be the one to give the order of when good men will die. 

But she needed time for herself, like all others bearing the blood of humankind. She needed to rest even for just a day. Can't Robbie take care of himself for a little longer? The young former-socialite was simply exhausted, and she thought in her barely-functioning brain, Can't Robbie take care of himself for a while? I could use a good night's rest, just like how I did when all this wasn't blowing up. Oh, for sure, I want to go back to Jenny and Gianna. But they're dead. Her hazel eyes started to shed tears, as the young woman reminisced of the memories she has lost grip on. To remember having to see her friends get dragged across the floor as they struggle to breathe with their punctured lungs. All that, she buried away within the deepest recesses of her mind. 

True, it is now her responsibility to at least take part on the assault against the Venatorian outpost. But Alicia fought and sacrificed too much already. Only to rekindle the fires of freedom in the hearts of her kinsmen. And now she'll live accordingly. She'll do what she want, say what she want, and go where she want. Robbie pestered him for too long. It's time she took a little stroll around the ruins of her beloved city, New York. 

  Alicia walked away from the tower's penthouse, away from the scent of sweat that escaped through the armpits of young, muscular men sporting drenched tank tops. She walked away from Johntlea, who was her deceased mother's mortal enemy, and walked away from her long-trusted butler. Her weight was carried down by the high-class, yet dusty elevator of the Ateon Tower. Taking her red automobile with her, she drove 'round ghost towns and through abandoned hospitals. She sang with the stereo screaming as if she was in an empty room. "I am an American girl!", she yells seconds before taking a sip from her soda can. I love these vintage songs! Wonder what people 30 years ago lived like? Maybe it was like paradise, where nobody insults someone for who they love or for their skin color. Or maybe it's far worse than this. Maybe the people before would rather choose this apocalypse than face what they had in their lifetime?, Alicia thought. 

She imagined the iridescent puddles on the streets of New York, with tall skyscrapers reflecting shining light from the sun while the clouds gave the smiling people their greetings. The skyline was dominated with jetplanes, sketching a happy face with the smoke from their engines. She imagined an opposite, too. The government using satellites as their spyware against their subjects. Children crying for their parents as they die of emaciation. Adolescents slitting their throats because the world around them can't accept who they are. Maybe the sins her ancestors made in the past led to their dystopia in the present. 

A city with no children. New York, where there is nothing new, everything old. New York, where the head of a gigantic green woman had fell off to the cement road to gather dust. Innocence is a word that isn't part of the vocabulary. Women (and men) get dragged through the floor as they were to suffer  for crimes they did not commit. The stores for clothing and perfume are rarely robbed, since there was little need for avant-garde fashion nor the gargantuan fedoras partnered with big, high-heeled shoes, which was a trend in the year 2026. The young former-socialite still had a chance to break in to the Larris Bumton bag collection shops and pick what catches her eye, as if shopping.