(Rose)
There's very little wind and the air is burning hot. Even standing still in the shades makes me sweat.
This is south mediterranean weather for me...
I've tied a piece of clothing around my head like a hijab to shelter my head a little from the sun.
I've left my hats at home...
I enter the city from a road half buried in this very rough sand that covers the entire landscape.
From the sky, I thought it was silky sand from the Sahara desert, albeit grey, that covered almost everything on the ground. The truth is different.
This so called sand is a mix of various rocks, natural sand, glass, concrete dust and clays, in various sizes of grains.
It also contains fibres of wool I think, or cotton perhaps, small pieces of plant stems and wood too, dry. Finally it contains pieces of rubber and plastics, in many kinds and sizes.
It's this complex sand that seems to cover the roads, the streets, and all the land outside.
Under the sun, the sand can shine and glitter from all its components. It's rather pretty.
The buildings are hollow. It's as if every paint and item had been slowly turned into dust by the sand, and becoming part of it. Like if the sea erosion happened above, somewhat.
I've stepped on sharp pieces of metal buried in the sand and opened the skin from my foot rather deep. I lost some blood and went inside the closest building to take care of the wound.
I throw out my shoes and what's left of the rags that were once my socks. They've been almost pointless for a while now.
Blume is constricting the wound and quickly healing it from inside. But that makes me even more thirsty.
I then step into the basement, again looking for something useful, I could be lucky.
The basement is mostly collapsed. The ducts are all dry and empty.
I recall seeing trees outside before, I'll go look there.
Outside, the sunlight feels like a good knock on the head every time I'm exposed to it. I walk further north, toward a square that still has living trees. I don't what kind they are.
Everything is made of this bright yellow and white, with shades of concrete grey dusts and all the various glittering elements randomly spread.
The square still has vehicles protruding from the complex sand.
I wish I'd seen the legendary blue curtains I've heard about, but now they're all gone, and I think were further West. All that's left are eroded walls and pieces of blue plastic here and there. I've picked up what I think are fragments of bones also. They lighten the sand here and there.
R - Is it bones?
B - I think so. Chicken probably.
R - I see...
The trees I reach are actually taller than I thought. More than thirty metres tall. They cast little shades unfortunately. A kind of heavy armoured vehicle is parked next to them. A tank as they called it. Another model.
Blume plunges her ribbons deep into the ground, looking for some moisture. I sit and rest for a moment meanwhile. I can feel her body slithering slowly down in the ground, following the roots of the trees.
The sun is merciless here. I brush large drops of sweat from my forehead.
The land is obviously deserted. I guess the only remaining wildlife around here are scorpions and monsters.
Blume comes back and says there wasn't any water down there really.
She slashes a branch of a tree up there. It falls slowly. I eat all the leaves slowly over the next hour. I've lost my sense of taste lately so I don't mind.
I climb inside the tank that still is in good shape. It's oddly not that burning warm inside, despite looking like a giant tin can. I guess it's not mere steel they used to build it.
Beside a decayed weapon and what I think is a parachute, I find nothing useful. No water there either.
I try to make the vehicle start and move by curiosity, but it doesn't react anything I can try.
I end up finding a tool box and a medical kit. I keep the small crowbar and the drugs. Why would a tank have sea-sickness drugs though? If I understood the tattered notes correctly. A few things are written in English in there, but it's the fourth or fifth language on the list. French and German are even further down the list...
What the hell happened to Europe while I was gone?
Outside, as I leave, I realise I haven't seen any other written thing at all in this land so far. Nothing outside is left with writing on them. The sand swallowed everything.
~
I follow an empty canal heading East. Boats are abandoned in this drought. From the street above where I walk, this canal is an odd sight. The hollow shells of buildings are harbouring still many fragmented colours, whereas this empty canal flooded with warm sunlight is just a hot glow of gold and yellow. It's so sunny I'm eager for night lately...
I'm getting dizzy and enter the next building I find to rest a little. Again I look for the basement first, to find water. There's just a mummified body lying there, in the middle of nothing. I stand before it for a minute, lost in thoughts.
I remember the Queen's tunnel for some reason. I felt oppressed but the atmosphere back there too. But back there, everything could survive...
I keep walking until the night finally comes. My throat hurts from the thirst. My head does from the heat and light. As I untie the scarf from my head, I notice my hair is damp from sweating.
R - Can you reuse the water I lose this way?
B - Hm... It helps your body not overheat... Maybe. Well, if I built a new layer of skin above your perhaps I could keep you cool and keep more water too.
R - My clothes aren't good?
B - You'd need something more reflective. I can try making that.
R - You just want to touch my skin don't you?
B - I'll enjoy that side-benefit too indeed. If you agree, I'll need more biological material to crat that through the night, and heavy metals if possible.
R - Heavy metals? Like lead or gold? I haven't seen any... Let see what we can find around.
Before the night gets too dark, I search through a few more buildings.
All I can find is a can of very old paint. It smells like mould as I open it. Blume says it's perfect though. As for the metals, the best I could find were a crate, a bin rather, of these computers.
I fall asleep next to all that, while Blume drinks the rotten paint and eats the broken computers slowly. Only my flower could craft something useful from all this...
~
I have a scary dream and wake up suddenly. Blume's tentacles are moving around me. Her roses come to reassure me a little. She's crafting something very strange.
The sun just began to rise. I feel a little dizzy and weird but stand up. Blume complies and join me up even though she isn't fully done yet.
I take some of my clothes off and she dresses me with a kind of long short that looks like the pelt of an unknown silver animal. It's shiny white and silver. It obviously fits perfectly onto my skin. It had no buttons and gets closed and tight on its own. This fur covers my upper body and just one leg since she couldn't finish it in a single night.
What's left goes atop my head like a Russian chapka.
Being all dressed in white and silver like a ballet princess doesn't quite suit me, but I admit that it's surprisingly effective regarding the temperature. It just feels right and nice, all day long with that, even under the blazing sun.
However I can't look directly at my clothes as it blinds me. It shines too much.
I return to the city that stretches for ever along the land desert.
I pass by abandoned (obviously) trucks, nearing a factory. Bottles are scattered everywhere around. I get inside the factory standing buildings to look for some liquid I could drink.
The machinery is impressive, going everywhere around inside that building.
It's old, yet still almost pristine. It's cleaner than my house could ever have been. It takes the walls to crumble for dust to appear in some areas behind solid doors.
Seeing some printed or painted panels on the walls, I realise this company manufactured or rather filled, glass bottles with fruit juices.
Now I'm looking for the tanks of the liquid gold!
I follow the pipes from empty mixing room to the next.
And all the tanks I find are dry and clean along the way. Hopefully there's something left...
In the end of the factory, I find a small laboratory, much like I would have imagined the pharmacology laboratories to be in the future.
It's more damaged by time since it had larger windows. Now that they're gone, the complex sand has filled the rooms slowly over time.
The furniture is eroded and its colours have faded.
Yet some products remain. I found some bottles at last still holding a few liquids.
One holds alcohol, but not the kind you can drink. I take it anyway. Another holds a kind of syrup. It only tastes sweet, but too much, stronger than honey and without perfume.
The last one is an old acid, with an odd perfume that does remind me of a fruit perhaps. A drop on my tongue sends me so strong shivers however that I can't really tell what it is.
No water anywhere. They had faucets and sinks, why would they put water in bottles? Silly me. I give up.
I craft myself a better backpack with what I found around, to hold the three bottles. Then I was on my merry way again. I guess this town really dried to the roots.
I follow the streets leading outside, behind collapsed railways from a train station in ruins.
In the distance, far beyond the desert, I can guess the black mountain that is close to the pyramids, and its cloudy summit.
I pass by various wrecks of cars and trucks slowly sinking into the complex sand of this land. They will become one with it over time.
My white and silver clothes are still blinding me under the sun, but are otherworldly in their efficiency at keeping me cool.
Blume drinks from the three bottles at the same time, and she seems to enjoy them.
She's getting cheerful and chuckles.
R - What is it? What is amusing?
B - I'm turning that alcohol into, well, ethanol, the alcohol you can drink. The thing is, we already have both drank some through me. Sorry...
R - We need water and you made us drunk?
B - Ah ah... Sorry. I'm drinking the water these solutions contain, but a drop of alcohol too meanwhile.
R - You... You just wanted to seize the opportunity to tease me, right?
B - Of course. Now, please, enjoy...
She laughs. I feel the warmth I can't fight rising within and grin.
~