The Corpse of Fantasy

For the futures that will only ever remain dreams, and to the dreams that die to become the future

“Did you know, Mond, that as you grow up, color begins to fade from your world?”. 

Old man Masuda hadn't really called him Mond of course , why would he? The wizened old restaurateur could never have been described as a dour soul, but Mond doubted he would be very much comfortable with engaging in the childish whimsies he himself employed just to pass through the day.

 Sunset’s red paint poured through the cafe windows and occupied the hinoki floors, taking place of the dust the young man swept away.

"Yup, It’s scientific even! Apparently as these ol’ eyes of ours age, they begin to yella’, so everything starts to get all washed out.” The tiny old man stood up on the ends of his oversized derby shoes, reaching for the kitchen door latch, chuckling to himself in a rattling yet joyful tone that reminded Mond of what he imagined an elderly horse would laugh like. 

“Guess it's just another one of God's ways’a making us grow up kick’in an screamin huh kid”, a wink of Masuda's own yellow eyes demanded a smile onto Mond's face, and a sickening knot in his stomach.

The encouragement of late May's breeze gave the young man the courage to speak up to his employer, rattling with his keys that seemed to be stuck in the Cafe door.

 “ Hey um Mr.Masuda sir, would you mind if I took tomorrow off? I know it's kind of sudden but it’ll be my birthday and I sorta wanted to -” Mond was cut off by the heavy set of keys that had suddenly flew out of the lock, unwedged by a sudden burst of strength from their owners aging body, clattering right into his face.

 “O-oh sorry boy, must’a overdone it there a little,” Old man Masuda bent his body over in an attempt to help Mond off the gravel pavement, “ but really though, you must get with your honorifics, you’ve been in Ibaraki nearly a year now and you’re running outta slack my friend.” 

Mond dusted himself off and handed the keyset to his boss, who graciously took them, “and as for the day off- “ Masuda turned to him with a look of sternness that suddenly turned into a playful sneer, “ Tomorrow is Sunday ya big dummy”. 

Parting from Mond with a flick to his forehead, the old man was off, leaving the boy alone in the twilight bound city lot. He would have felt more embarrassed about the whole exchange had it not been Mr.Masuda, someone he’d trained himself not to feel stupid around and not to care what he thought, a practice Masuda himself was just fine with. 

“The boy works hard, and he don't mean no disrespect, he just fancies himself a jaded soul I think” the cafe-keep would laugh to his buddies after a night of drinking, “Kids only 18 and he thinks his life’s all but over, hah!” 

“He’s just lucky he found an old prick like you who couldn't care less about manners so long as he gets the floor mopped!” one of Masuda's friends would yell over to him in a drunken glee, a comment that would muster up a tussle between the two old cranks.

“Tommorow huh? It’ll have been a year since it should’a happened…” Mond took in a deep breath of dusk air-turned night, alone in the concrete lot he longed to be a grotto, surrounded by aberrant buildings he wished to be the ruins of long lost civilizations, waiting to be rediscovered. 

Ruins that began to stretch and rise around him, pale greys that turned to mossborne greens along with the dead stone at his feet that softened to windswept fields like a corpse that just took a breath again.

 “No…” Mond shut his eyes,  suddenly but with little force, closing off his mind and heart both to the metamorphosis of the world around him, taking a breath of now pure night. And when he would open his eyes, the biome of poured concrete and metal sheet he inhabited had returned, the only magic to be seen residing in the sky, where it always had been. 

Mond let a somber smile crawl onto his face, his disheveled jet black hair the only other thing that hung in his vision aside from the brilliant full moon and its herald of stars, “ It's alright buddy, I'm okay here… you don't have to keep trying.”