headed towards a great, golden dome in the center of a lush field. Exotic fruits and vegetables filled the trees of this strange, new place. As the townspeople poured out from their homes, they gasped in amazement.
The rock monster turned its massive head and seemed to stare straight at Fergan. It held its hands out in front of it, palms facing down, as though warning Fergan to stay steady. True to its word, the creature began to kneel down until its knee rested in the field below. It pulled Ylthe from its shoulder and gently nestled it in the rich field. It sat cross-legged on the ground and, drawing its knees to its chest, became again the mountain that the Ylthens had grown to know so well. All around, the rock creatures were unloading their burdens and returning to their natural state, until the golden dome was surrounded by mountains on all sides.
Fergan stepped into the field and filled his lungs with its sweet air. Turning to his people, he began to speak.
“We have been given our purpose. We must make our new home here. We must work together with the people around us and create harmony. This is what my father would have wanted.”
In the years following the pilgrimage, Fergan’s town became bigger and bigger as it expanded. Taller buildings were erected; businesses were started. With each passing year came a new advancement, until they were operating in a highly advanced hub. Fergan’s bloodline was passed on to generation after generation. The technological hub became sophisticated and modern. As the city grew, however, so too did a divide among the people. Varying viewpoints forced apart the once harmonious town. Wars were waged, and the massive town of Singularis became a town divided. On the eve of another great war, the sky opened up and began a torrent of rain unlike any seen in the hundreds of years since Singularis’ conception.
Coffee Shop
Maybe it would happen in a week, a month, a year. Maybe it would happen when I was dead, not that it would be of much consequence then. Maybe I would continue going to that same coffee shop every single Saturday without fail, sitting at that same table, ordering that same coffee with lots of room for milk. This had been my routine for approximately the last three year, two months, and two weeks, but who’s counting? Three years of waking up early and walking the six blocks to that god-awful coffee shop, the breeding ground for pretentious young adults and desperately-yearning-to-be-cool teenagers. Fifty-dollar flannels and seventy-five dollar fingerless gloves bought at a store where men named Chip, who spend hours trying every morning to look as though they didn’t try, tell you everything you need to achieve the newest level of “hobo chic”. Expensive clothes made to look worn out and used, used as their mother’s medicine cabinet and their father’s bank account. That is the real problem in places like this; there is no character. Save for the homeless man who spends his days in this shop like some sort of breathing lawn ornament and can be seen watching every customer that came in, this place has become a trendy hang-out spot for all of the worst kinds of people. Everything is manufactured, groomed, specifically engineered to give the illusion that it has been around for years. Funny, considering the fact that this particular coffee shop is entering its fifth year of life, just one of many franchises that cropped up on every street corner.
I stayed for only one hour each time I make my weekly visit to this pre-packaged cesspool of poor quality coffee and shame. One hour, in the hopes that I would finally be granted the opportunity to end my visits. One hour, spent staring angrily over the smallest cup of coffee they offer, still four times more expensive than any cup of coffee I had ever purchased before. One hour of picking at my fingernails, being careful to closely examine the face of every single person that pushes through the door. One hour, and then it was another week of waiting before I can continue my valiant journey. I rapped my fingertips on the table’s surface, tracking the progress of the shop’s resident homeless man as he walked over to my table. His eyes locked on my own, he said, “You will never find what you are looking for if you do not truly want to.”
Irritated at the intrusion, I stared into his eyes and tried to glean some meaning out of his fortune cookie statement to me. The man’s eyes, eyes of the darkest brown I had ever seen, seemed to grab me in a tractor beam. I was entranced, unable to move or think freely. What felt like a heavy fog settled over my mind, allowing me to drift into a deep calm. A name was shouted out into the crowd of customers, a beckoning for someone to pick up their order. As if a switch was flipped, my mind snapped back into clear focus and the man turned away.
Watching the homeless man move on to the next customer, it dawned on me that nobody seemed to understand my goal. The every day person scoffs at the idea that there are certain things that one must do, even if it is not fully understood. The idea that there are things that consume one’s soul, one’s mind, and one’s time so completely cannot be fully understood. The average Joe, it turns out, will laugh when the idea of “magic” is raised in everyday conversation. In a world of media and material possessions, having a goal that is not based in personal gain is baffling to most.
Thirty-eight minutes had elapsed. Twenty-two minutes remain, twenty-two minutes that could mean the difference between a renewed life and a continued death. I swirled my coffee around in the cheap paper cup, cheap enough that it begins to disintegrate under the boiling swells of coffee moving up the sides of the cup with every swig. Like everything else in this lifestyle, these cups are made to be used and tossed away. They are made to last no more than fifteen minutes, just enough time to finish an overpriced, underwhelming cup of coffee on the way to work. A woman walked through the door, brunette with porcelain skin and the longest eyelashes I had ever seen. Beautiful, but not The One I’m looking for. Patrons came and went, hundreds in the short hour that I spend waiting.
Twenty-seven years old and already I felt like my life is slipping away from me. It felt so limitless after high school; I felt that I had an entire world open to me, awaiting my passage into adult life. Instead what I was met with was monotony, boredom, and tediousness. College, work, traffic, bills, the daily grind. What once brought me joy now produced a cold stab of bitterness, a rising of bile in my throat as I remembered what used to be. Wasting an hour in a coffee shop I detest in the hopes of finding someone who might not even exist, for a reason that I do not even truly understand. Anxious, I slid my hand into my pocket and fiddle with the feathered edges of the worn piece of paper in my pocket. Something so simple and unassuming, and yet it had the power to change my life completely. Thinking back, it is impossible to even remember how I found the piece of paper, just that one day I did not have it and the next I did. When it was inexplicably in my possession, I was fueled with an overwhelming need to complete some sort of mission, a journey, an endeavor, that I just knew would allow me to be free again.
Frustrated and alone, I tossed my lukewarm coffee into the mass produced art-deco trashcan and slink to the exit. Seventeen minutes early and overrun with a torrent of emotions, I flung the door open and found myself face to face with everything that I had been searching for on my seemingly endless quest: Green eyes, more green than anything immortalized in poem or song; hair of the deepest chestnut imaginable, but inundated with blondes, reds, lighter browns; and a smile that could lift even the most downtrodden man’s spirits. Curiously, it felt as though the world had stopped turning if only briefly, and I was able to fully breathe in the wonder that was before me. I searched for something in her eyes, some flash of recognition or acknowledgement, but was met with nothing but a blank stare. Quicker than it happened, the moment was over. The woman slid by and made her way into the comforting warmth of the establishment, undeterred by the encounter that I had been waiting desperately on for years.
I pulled out that same ragged piece of paper that had driven me to become a regular at a shop that I absolutely detest. Entranced, I stared at the scrap of paper until the edges seemed to disappear; as if by magic the words began to fade under the intent gaze of my eyes. The words rippled and rolled across the surface of the scrap before f
ading like water pouring from a pitcher. A shimmering light emanated from within the page itself, bleeding from the paper, through my fingertips, and into my body. A sort of gut instinct, I knew that whatever power had its hold on me had been vanquished, and I could feel my frustration dissipate and a weight lift free from my shoulders. I turned from the coffee shop, filled with a new spirit and a new appreciate for everything that my life had been before the mysterious piece of paper. As I threw a parting glance over my shoulder at the place that had consumed my life, I saw the same homeless man that had offered his cryptic advice slip a piece of paper into the back pocket of a young woman leaving the shop.
About the Author
Ariel McKean is an aspiring comic book writer earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment at Full Sail University. She has had pieces of flash fiction published in her school’s literary magazine, and works with her friends and family on personal screenwriting and branding projects. Throughout her academic career, her works of fiction were published in school periodicals and