Interlude I - The Strange Garden Pt I

‘Huh? Where am I? I’m pretty sure I went to sleep in a bed, so how could I have ended up in a vivid and vast garden of lilies, with bright blue skies and beautiful, tranquil ponds as far as the eye can see?’ A woman with an orange streak in her otherwise dark-brown hair asked herself quietly, as her eyes scanned the surroundings. Also, where are my glasses and scrunchie?? And where did I get this white, um… Doric chiton(?) from? At least the lack of underwear means that I get the full soothing sensation of its soft, flowing linen against my skin, but I digress.

‘Young lady, fear not; this is a safe space and you have been chosen, along with one other.’

‘Huh? A commanding yet comforting disembodied voice of a woman coming from over in that direction? I think I hear fast-flowing water in the direction of that rocky structure as well? Maybe somebody else is here?’

After a few minutes spent walking through the garden, the lady paused. Footsteps? No; someone’s running? Another woman? She’s also wearing a white robe? She has black and purple hair and a water lily in her hair? This is some trippy shit... Wait; why does she get to have her hair tied and I don’t?? Ah, right; she’s wearing a type of lily in her hair; figures…

‘Hey, um, I’ve been running for ages and seen nothing but lilies, ponds and blue skies, where are we?’ the black and purple-haired woman hurriedly questioned, amid panting and gasping for breath.

‘Where are we? Who are you?’

‘Now, now ladies. There’s no need to be alarmed.’

‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ the amethyst-eyed lady asked, with a hushed voice.

‘Umm; the giant lily flower is talking?’

‘What the-’

‘Yes, ladies, I am in fact a sub-incarnation of Sappho and ruler of this land, known only as “beyond the fourth wall”. Worry not; you shall forget all about this place and be returned to your normal lives without noticing anything once you have explained the current state of your world to the audience. Among other factors, you were already both fairly knowledgeable on the subject matter, thus making you uniquely qualified. I have temporarily given you some more wisdom, to help with your task,’ the giant pink lily advised.

Both ladies stood and stared at the large flower, with blank expressions.

‘Yeah; this is one wild-ass dream,’ the lotus-wearing woman remarked, with a light laugh. I’ve got no other explanation and I’d probably hurt my brain trying to find one, so…

‘Hear, hear,’ the brown-haired woman agreed, with a cheerful smile. Fourth wall? Does this mean we’re fictional characters? Awesome; maybe I’ll get to run off into the sunset with that cool beauty I met recently without too much trouble then!

‘Very well, ladies. If you don’t mind, could you please explain your world and the current point in time that it sits in? Don’t worry about who or where your audience is; you’ll be heard, even without their presence being obvious.’

The brown-haired woman led on, ‘The moment in time where the story’s events take place is in the latter end of the 2020s, where the world (as had been predicted by some) has largely descended into chaos. Russia has been in a hopeless war with Europe for many years. Both China and the United States have sleepwalked into full-scale civil wars, following complete economic collapse, with a number of other world states following in their unfortunate footsteps.

‘Zooming in from the global view, this story(?), following the journey of four women for a brief period in this tricky period of time, took place on a diagonally-orientated, banana-shaped island in South-East Asia, also affected by major disruptions in its socio-economic situation, but not nearly as badly as the former world-leaders. The island has many peaceful pockets, thanks to the inhabitants’ relatively pacifist nature though, amidst the spread of global chaos.

‘The island remained a fairly attractive place to live but also to visit as a tourist, boasting impressive cleanliness, bustling cityscapes with interesting architecture. Many cities hosted structures built around the efficient use of space and overflowed with quirks that would seem odd to the Western eye. The island also featured many breath-taking mountain scenes, with expansive, luscious forests and woodland, as well as coastal areas that could rival any tropical island postcard.

‘The island managed to maintain relative peace when things began to collapse, thanks to the abundance of villages and community spirit that lay within. Although the situation for everybody was and still continued to become increasingly difficult, their ability to work together and self-sustain has been nothing short of remarkable. The island is also blessed with fairly mild weather for most of the year, though there is a rainy season which often features typhoons and storms. This weather does however make the agriculture situation on the island quite convenient, especially in these more challenging times.

‘Probably unsurprisingly however, there had recently been a staggering increase in opportunist collectives that have sought to take advantage of the evolving situation. The main challenge for the various security forces on the island ranged from ordinary street gangs, up to international crime syndicates.’

After a brief pause, her head turned, to face the black and purple-haired woman, ‘You’re up; it’s your turn to explain,’ she advised, with a playful smile.

‘Right… um… among rumours, suspicions had been growing in intelligence communities that paramilitaries also recently began setting up operations, to take advantage of the relatively peaceful state of the island, given its small size and abundance of resources and technology which could be weaponised for their own benefit.

‘One such organisation, Compass Security Solutions (believed to have originated from Shanghai, in the mid-2020s), reportedly largely consisted of both former military and intelligence officers as well as newcomers, purely in search of good pay and willing to forgo morals and values to obtain such. Their presence on the island had been noted for their willingness to engage in operations that actively contributed to the increase in tensions and danger on the island. The limited information that had been gathered suggested that the organisation engaged in private security operations, arms imports, research and development of military technology along with the more far-fetched suspicion that they had ongoing projects focused on conducting psychological research, with the aim of developing enhanced and more efficient employees and field operators.

‘Similarly far-fetched, are the numerous attestations, claims and rumours throughout history that there are people who can affect naturally-occurring phenomena and mechanics of the world around them, albeit on a localised scale. In previous eras, the panicked or misguided reactions of people with such abilities usually resulted in them being dismissed as witches or otherwise supernatural elements which needed to be exterminated, out of fear for the unknown and unexplained as well as the threat that they could potentially pose to public safety.

‘The numerous stories of such people throughout history have always had miserable endings for those at the heart of them; the unlucky ones becoming social outcasts, essentially being forced to wither away and die. The lucky individuals were afforded relatively quick deaths, where the folks around them concluded that they were witches or monsters in disguise…

‘In modern times, the general belief among the general population is that people with the ability to locally control certain elements of nature simply only exist in folk tales. However, as is the case with UFOs, certain supernatural creatures and other urban legends or myths, there are isolated communities where it is claimed that these people do exist. From the nations with cases in the past few years, if one gathered up all of the reported instances of people who exhibited extended abilities like these, they would conclude that the world holds a distribution of roughly one per ten million people. Recent cases included the ability to manipulate mass or density of people and objects, the ability to control velocity of single bodies; there had even been one case, with a woman who could reportedly affect rates of mitosis.

‘Not gonna lie; that was one pretty dry script; Sappho really wants us to sound like narrators from the olden days or something, huh?’

‘Er, you don’t know who Sappho is, or was, do you?’

‘A lesbian goddess?’

‘Hehe; not quite; she was a poet in ancient Greece.’

‘So, you’re gonna lecture me as well? Enough about that, I’m wondering why she had us explain all that stuff about people with special connections to the world’s mechanisms? Did you know anything about that?’

A nervous laugh escaped the brown-haired woman’s mouth, ‘Uhh, no?’

‘Thank you for your service, ladies. When your consciousnesses are returned, I wish you the best of luck and fortunes chasing after your respective women.’

‘Thanks!’

The black and purple-haired woman glared derisively. ‘Why are you bowing?’

‘You know; if or when a lesbian spirit visits you, showing them their due respect’s gotta count for something, right?’

‘Yeah; I am not bowing to a talking lily, no matter how weird all of this is. Praying while stood upright still counts, surely…’

With a slightly disappointed tone, the woman with the orange streak in her hair remarked, ‘Okay, suit yourself…’ Don’t say I didn’t try to help you if we ever meet again…