The Altonevers (51 page)

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 cedar 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?” Anna
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.

“
Is that what I think it
is. Yes, yes. Oh yes, what a beautiful one it is. I remember the
day I found that one in the far fields of the absorption emitting
forest, it was a wonderful day. Careful not to tear the petals when
pulling it out, a very delicate one, you must be exceedingly
careful,” the elderly woman says in a youthful spirited
heartwarming tone. Cider's face softens in seeing Anna's melt to
elation, and the elderly florist smiles watching them both. Anna is
Aglow in the flora's pungent scent, and the warmth flowing from the
vermilion and yellow of the sun flowering rose's refulgent radial
blooming bud. With sharp spiraling petals resembling licks of
plasma frozen in place, blissfully pleasing to her sense of sight.
As long as she look to the petals silky textured delicately
decorated ink blot patterns, she is released from everything but
it's own subconscious pleasing subliminal strumming
sight.