this is a new bad habit of mine-- starting loads of stories while keeping others going. but hey, it's fun and that's all that matter right? here's something a lil different.
enjoy!
rmf
The pale pink of my dress fanned out on the perfect lawns around me. The tiny diamonds sparkled in the sunshine like constellations against a rosy tulle sky. A pile of roses lay in front of me and I was sorting them, into yellows, pinks, reds and purples. I looked up and he stood over me. His smile was breath taking, lighting up his eyes, pulling his red lips up towards the skies. I smiled back at him. Birds swooped over us, clicking and whirring like clockwork, red feathers glinting like rubies, green like emeralds, blue like sapphires, pinks like, well, you get the gist. Then there was only one rose left in my hand, a vibrant yellow, and I placed it with its friends, effectively finishing my task. Then I reached up to take his hand.
What a nice man. I thought as my palm touched against his gloved skin.
Then he laughed, and a thin stream of water hit my eye. The clown had pressed the joke flower pin on his chest, sending water straight into my right eye. I gasped as he dropped me, laughing along at the joke. His red lips still outlined his bright grin as I rubbed at my eye. Then it stung a little and I asked him what the water really was. Onion juice he said, jovially, lifting a large bottle labelled as such and looking into the distance as if the whole situation was a commercial for the product.
Where did he even get a litre of onion juice? I wondered.
Then my eye abruptly stopped hurting and the clown pointed to my knee, where the spotty yellow lederhosen that had replaced my dress revealed an itchy lump. From my bare knee sprouted a yellow rose, which opened to reveal a small woman. Like Thumbelina. But fatter and more bogan.
"Wake up, ya knobcake."
I frowned. Thats not a very nice thing for the fairy to say in her loud, manly voice. The same message was repeated in my ear and I jolted upright, breaking out of the dream.
My brother leaned back from his seat beside me. The window seat, please note, despite the fact that I needed it more. Aeroplanes really were never my thing.
"We're about to land."
"Wow really?"
I clutched the arms of the chair as the plane banked to the right, trying to keep some semblance of steadiness to deter the sway of nausea in my stomach, the sarcasm slipping out of my mouth like my vomit would if the plane didn't stop moving soon and my brother wouldn't shut up.
"Why did you wake her, Liam? We still have two minutes."
My mother leaned across the aisle from where she sat next to my father, directing an unimpressed look at my idiot brother.
"Like you said: two minutes left! We might have accidentally left her on the plane!"
"Don't be ridiculous. Besides, you know how long it takes to park the plane, let alone getting off."
They continued to mutter back and forth in the dark air of the flying hunk of metal to which we entrusted our lives. I shut my eyes as we banked again, groaning slightly. The portly lady next to me, who looked remarkably like Thumbelina from my dream, gave a snort in her sleep, but made no signs of waking up, despite the hissed debate occurring across her.
"Don't be ungrateful, Liam Hawke. It's a miracle she let you have the window seat. You know it makes a difference to her."
"How? She sleeps the whole time! And anyway—"
Two minutes to landing my ass.
When we hit the concrete with a bang I almost resigned my dignity to the devil and clapped like a dumbass. Fortunately, I was still afraid that if I moved anything other than my fingers and toes I would lose the contents of my stomach and perhaps my spleen in the process. By the time we had arrived into the thorough customs system, my stomach had stopped rolling enough to allow me confidence to open my mouth.
"Really, Mum, those drugs are weird. I'm grateful that they make me sleep and all, but I have the craziest dreams."
"Well to be fair, Thea, you took enough of that stuff to knock out a cow— oh wait— no I see now."
I didn't have the energy to punch my brother, but the look I sent him ought to have done it for me. My father caught this look and laughed, pleased to not be on the receiving end of an expression that promised war.
Customs was tedious. I had heard that this particular city preferred to be careful about the goods and people they received: no criminals of any kind, no dirty substances or illegal import of any kind, take your shoes off at the door, that sort of thing. I counted the minutes, feeling exhausted despite the heavy sleep on the plane and the paling skies outside as dawn kissed the day into existence. Looks like jet lag is gonna be a pain in the a-double-s. At least there is no rush to get out and about, what with a little under a month until school started. Although, confession time: I was quite excited to see what school would be like in a different country. Sue me. Actually don't, I'm broke.
The entire family, all four of us, perked a little at the sight of the train icon pointing towards some stairs. It meant that soon we would be out of the glass and steel maze of an airport, and soon we would be in our new home. The subway from the airport was a modern looking thing, recently updated in response to the city's constant place in the public eye and eternal stream of tourists and new citizens. The transport seemed neat and fast, and the train itself turned up on the dot. We stumbled through the automated doors with our large bags, one hefty suitcase each, and found seats as we pulled out of the underground airport station. Our eyes competed against dinner plates in diameter when the vehicle sudden left the underground through a tunnel and smoothly run along the ground level of the outside world that is the city, before climbing even higher onto a bridge.
The famed cityscape of Avalon rolled out around us like grey mist, spotted with tiny sparks of the glinting rising sunlight off glass and metal. The founders of the city may be as modest as they like, everyone knows why they named it Avalon. Avalon is paradise, and so is this city. There was a faint shine in the distance, steadily growing closer as the train approached, that was the harbour, where trading ships and war boats alike settled to stay a while. This branched off to snake through the buildings in the form of the Styx River, a hilarious joke of an irony— the river of Hell weaving its way through paradise. Avalon had overtaken all other cities in the US to become the favourite destination, with their cleanliness laws, amazing architecture and, let's just say, fascinating people.
Not to mention, they had jobs. My mother's to be specific. This promotion was worth the uprooting, the move from rural Australia to urban Avalon. My father was happy to finally pursue his baking career, my brother was stoked to expand on his basketball dreams, and I was happy to explore somewhere new. Somewhere different. There was a fire escape outside my promised bedroom window, which I could fill with plants. Hopefully my little garden will be enough to hinder the home sickness. For as much as I love travelling and exploring cities, I also find a point where I long for the simple, beautiful country. You can take a girl out of the country, but you can't stop her from growing the country outside her window to try and subdue the pain of the country inside her, right?
***
The following morning brought an ache in my lower back and the discovery of the hole in my air mattress. Our furniture was to be delivered today. That included our beds. Yesterday, upon arriving at our second storey apartment, we had spent the hours organising our closets, stocking the cupboards with non-refrigerator food and doing our best not to pass out with exhaustion as we smashed our body clocks back into line. A productive family like ourselves would not be wasting hours of our life with exhaustion getting the better of us, and so the need for energy in the following days inspired us to push through and go to bed when the sun went down like everyone else. The second day was the day we shook off the effects in record time. As we received a delivery of flat pack beds, my mother tasked me with waking up Liam, the weak link in our strong family front.
"Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on."
I leaned over his head and repeated the words in his ear until he lashed out, clocking me in the chin.
"Ow. Liam. That's rude."
He mumbled something explicit to try and make me give up. I sat next to him on the sleeping bag, sorry, bed, patting his head calmly.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"
I ended up hitting him on the back of the skull.
"C'mon. Mum wants us to get pillow cases."
"What?"
I tested my American accent.
"Mom wants us to buy pillow cases. For rrealssss."
The r's dragged out for a two seconds each. He scowled at me.
"That accent sucks."
"Well obviously I was pretending to make it bad," I said, as a (slightly offended) American girl, my arms crossed in indignation, my accent considerably more flawless.
"Now get your fat ass out of that pitiful excuse for a bed. Mum and Dad want us out of the house so they can fight over the flat packs and get a divorce from the stress then make it up and fall in love all over again before we get home. And I want an iced coffee."
My father passed the room as I said this and stuck his head in to comment.
"Can I have custody of you, Lils? That American accent is very impressive by the way, you'd make a fantastic actress, you have the stunning looks and everything."
"Aw shucks Dad, you darl. Of course you may have custody of me."
My mother called his name. He left with a chortle. I unzipped Liam's sleeping bag to his annoyance and ran away to grab my shoulder bag.
The very same futuristic and frighteningly clean train took us into the CBD and a robotic voice gave us a personal tour of every building we passed and the history of the city while we sipped on robot-made cocktails like billionaires. Okay no thats not true. It was a boring old subway train that had nothing special about it except that it was American and not Australian. Perfectly unremarkable. Nothing like the airport train. But hey, it got us where we needed to go. The CBD was a rush of locals trying to grumble about day-to-day life and tourists keeping their eyes peeled and coffee shops. So many coffee shops.
Nothing like Melbourne's coffee though, I thought, as I dawdled along sipping my over-the-top coffee that kind of hurt my hipster heart.
Following our phone maps, Liam and I grabbed sheets and pillowcases, using the money our mother gave us and simply staring at the things we wanted to buy for ourselves.
"We need part time work first, doofus." I reminded my brother as he drooled over some kind of fancy shoes for basketball.
"Yeah, whatever."
"Hey, you're the one who's broke, not me. Control your finances, man."
After an hour, we made our way back to the train station. I stopped, spotting an electronics store.
"Oh, I'm gonna go grab some earphones."
"What? No. We need to go home."
"It's fine, just go on without me. I'll catch the next train."
"What happened to not spending our money."
"Bro, I have money to spend. Seriously, just take the sheets. You're gonna miss the train."
"But—"
"The next train's in fifteen minutes see?" I pointed up at the board. "I literally can not get lost. Just go, Liam. I'll see you later."
He turned around and started walking, huge shopping bag in hand.
"I have my phone!" I called after him. He waved over his shoulder at me and continued to the platform. I snorted at his antics and crossed to enter the store.
The train pulled in fifteen minutes later, on the dot, and I found myself a seat towards one end, new earphones plugged in, music rising and falling around my world. As we drew closer to Elysian Fields, my stop and an ironically named, low-key sort of dumpy place, a man brushed past my seat. He nearly stumbled into my lap as the combination of the train's movement and some kind of alcohol swelled like a wind around him and buffeted him into a teetering balance. I frowned, pulling an earbud out as my gut sounded warning bells. He stumbled again, a couple of seats away, then stopped, reeling as he eye-balled the passenger in the seat. The next second, his mouth opened and abuse poured out, aimed at a terrified young asian woman. As he shouted for her to 'return to her own country' I stared around at the other passengers. No one had moved, but everyone looked uncomfortable. I had heard enough in psychology to know how the Bystander Effect went. Forcing aside doubts and fears, I stood and walked a few paces towards him.
"Excuse me," my American accent slipped into place, "could you please stop?"
The drunken man looked at me in dazed confusion.
"What?"
"Could you please stop. It's just, and I feel like I'm speaking for everyone here when I say, I would really like to enjoy this trip in peace and the things that you're saying to this lovely lady here are deplorable. So if you could please sit back down and leave her be, that would be just lovely."
Fury began to flicker behind his eyes as he beheld me.
"Are you defending her? This—"
He said something despicable then, and I was prompted by it to then stand in between them.
"Yes."
He scowled at me, sizing me up.
"And where are you from?"
"Same place as you." I said.
He snorted.
"And where might that be?"
I looked at him.
"Earth."
He didn't look impressed, but I charged on, launching into a monologue, my nerves bundled away somewhere for safe-keeping.
"As a matter of fact, everyone here comes from Earth, as far as I know. Unless you come from some other galaxy, you should know that here on Earth we have a kind of rule that we all follow. That is kindness and respect. We all follow this rule, as humans. Because we're all human. Me, this lovely lady, that guy there, even, though you aren't acting particularly humane, you are human. So allow me to make a gentle suggestion: please quietly go back to where you came from," I pointed, "your seat."
There was a silence when I finished, then someone started clapping and the whole carriage erupted into applause. The man's fury escalated and he widely swung a fist at me. His drunken state easily allowed me to evade the punch, but everyone gasped nonetheless. Now there were three grown men and a badass looking woman at my side, calmly offering to assist the drunkard off the train. I turned to the victim.
"Are you okay?" My accent dropped. She reached up and gave me a hug.
"You are very kind.' She told me. I giggled.
"Someone needed to stop him from further embarrassing his entire species."
She looked at me funny then.
"You are not American?"
"Aussie through and through. You?"
"Born in Vietnam."
I winked.
"We foreigners need to stick together."
She laughed.
The next stop was mine and I shouldered my bag. A fascinating experience for my first day in Avalon.