The Guard of Flowers

“The visions still come, and in the last weeks, they have become more frequent and foreboding. My days intermingle with the nights. The surface world has become saturated with the ones above and below, with an intensity of light and darkness I have not known nor desired. It has become a waking dream. I sleepwalk between the realms, between Paradise and the Abyss. They brought me a robe from Italy and when I touched it I was in the garden of Santa Maria Novella. I was by the Arno. I was by a women walking with three companions, while a man of sombre visage and troubling thoughts followed them to the river.

The thing you must understand is that the darkness is a habitat, a teeming and populated one. Living beings here, creatures with no names, beyond naming, beyond language. I cannot perceive them with my senses, and the impressions I receive are only a translation of the other reality beyond the physical - but they are something like the strange fish in the deepest parts of our world’s oceans, angler fish with lures of light, nets of teeth and eyes adapted to the depths. They have intelligence, I think, and a predatory intent. They are always darting, in constant, sharp motion. I think they are hunting. There is only one certainty. When the light comes, they scatter.”

-Alexander Cain, “The Burning Ones”

Michel took a single step forward, as if to possess Hell’s Kitchen. Its pungent, humid air choked the summer. The life that used to flow through the city had burnt away, leaving behind a sluggishness that clung to the flesh. The heat had turned Manhattan into a mirage, a moist and torrid languor, where any exertion brought forth bubbles of sweat. He paused. Mercifully, standing still kept him on the edge of discomfort. Only the most subtle movement brought relief.

The city seemed to teeter on the brink of exhaustion.

He glanced down at the ice cubes scattered on the sidewalk, spilling from a green cup that someone had tossed aside. They lay there, slowly succumbing to the heat, just like everything else. Michel flicked the ash from his cigarette onto them. A sizzle followed as the sparks transmuted to smoke, mixed with the steam rising from the grate. The grey of the smoke mirrored the colour of the sidewalk, spent and pedestrian.

Manhattan felt tense, like it was holding its breath, waiting for something—anything—to happen.

“There’s nothing mysterious about it,” she said, whistling in from his left side, cool and precise.? ?“You read all the same books at the same age, and it formed the way you think. The way you use language.”

Michel exhaled slowly, letting the smoke unfurl from his lips. “You’re ruining the romance.”

“I thought you said nothing was going on?”

“No, not with Aurelian. ?Why would it? I’m talking about my inner mirror, my self-love. My rippling illusion of being unique.” He turned to face her, a smile curling on his lips. “My darling, you’re a petitmerde, a filthy pebble, thrown into the silent pool of my mind.”

She laughed, a golden sound that bounced off the brick walls. “That could just be the most poetic insult I’ve ever received.”

Michel shrugged. It was a ripple, barely perceptible. ?“It’s good that you did it. Sometimes shaking up is exactly what we need. The guard of flowers. The flowers can’t save us. And if that’s the case, we need to find what can.”

The two stood there for a moment, the glory of the summer pressing down on them, the conversation drifting. The world seemed to unpick at the edges, dulled by the burr of the endless afternoon, smooth with the aroma of weed and hot concrete.

He turned to her, noticing the way the sunlight glinted off her silver sunglasses, hiding her eyes, but not the smirk on her lips. "You know," he said, "for someone who claims to loathe New York, you’re remarkably good at blending in with us…. sad sacks."

She tilted her head slightly, the movement a challenge. "Misery loves company, doesn’t it? And besides, you’re here. So it can’t be all that bad.” ?Her tone was still playful but with an undercurrent of something sharper.

“Don’t you own all of this, little prince? Isn’t this your birthright?

“Yes, cousin”, he answered. “I do. By blood. Now to work. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

“Honor and devotion, princeling,” she replied, flicking up her hair. Her unseen eyes seemed to focus on the outline of The Orion skyscraper, its glasswork glinting blue and green, as if with ghostly sapphires and garnets. Her gaze lingered there for a moment, like a dust mote.

Then she smiled, a flash which exposed the sharp bones, the edge of teeth: “I’m with you, cuz. Let’s kick some names and take some ass.”