Artiev88
Italian Thembo Supreme
The end of the world was 30 years ago, give or take.
Neither Alysa, nor her sister Hyacinthe had been alive to see it, or remember what it looked like before the Merge, since the visitors joined their midst and their realm fused with the one only her parents knew of.
Her parents have never really trusted the Visitors, despite being forced to collaborate to survive- It was a communally shared feeling between the older generation, the ones that had to claw back the land, stunned and terrified by what had happened.
Don’t talk to them or of them, they said, if you do, speak with respect. Be reserved, don’t give them what they ask. Bring salt with you, Alysa, wear iron and get accustomed to wearing two left shoes, and they’ll leave you alone.
And why would she ever want that? The visitors were beautiful. Shining carapaces and large eyes, twitching antennae, long feathery delicate legs… All so different and colorful.
The first time she had run out of the family orchard, through the curved trees whose branches twisted in delicate patterns, to pepper one of Them with questions she was scolded. The second, she was punished. By the third time she had learned to go through the broccoli patch, as the white heads would break like seafoam whenever she’d walk near them and aid her in her escape. By the tenth they had given up, marked her as a lost cause, and she had been free to do as she pleased since then.
She didn’t mind as much as they hoped she would- It was freedom, and she had been oblivious to the disapproving looks and talks about “the youths of today”.
Today she skipped through one of the neighbors’ newly seeded wheat fields, in search of the newest object of her interest.
She found them by the pool, announced by the bubbles around them, and approached.
“Hi!” She opened her notebook, and unclipped a pen from her kinky dark hair “May I have a piece of your time?”
Neither Alysa, nor her sister Hyacinthe had been alive to see it, or remember what it looked like before the Merge, since the visitors joined their midst and their realm fused with the one only her parents knew of.
Her parents have never really trusted the Visitors, despite being forced to collaborate to survive- It was a communally shared feeling between the older generation, the ones that had to claw back the land, stunned and terrified by what had happened.
Don’t talk to them or of them, they said, if you do, speak with respect. Be reserved, don’t give them what they ask. Bring salt with you, Alysa, wear iron and get accustomed to wearing two left shoes, and they’ll leave you alone.
And why would she ever want that? The visitors were beautiful. Shining carapaces and large eyes, twitching antennae, long feathery delicate legs… All so different and colorful.
The first time she had run out of the family orchard, through the curved trees whose branches twisted in delicate patterns, to pepper one of Them with questions she was scolded. The second, she was punished. By the third time she had learned to go through the broccoli patch, as the white heads would break like seafoam whenever she’d walk near them and aid her in her escape. By the tenth they had given up, marked her as a lost cause, and she had been free to do as she pleased since then.
She didn’t mind as much as they hoped she would- It was freedom, and she had been oblivious to the disapproving looks and talks about “the youths of today”.
Today she skipped through one of the neighbors’ newly seeded wheat fields, in search of the newest object of her interest.
She found them by the pool, announced by the bubbles around them, and approached.
“Hi!” She opened her notebook, and unclipped a pen from her kinky dark hair “May I have a piece of your time?”
