Aurelia: Daffodil
by Elizabeth Carusi
First day in a new city and it’s already gone wrong. He imagined more of a utopia, a futuristic city far more advanced and clean, not neon at every corner to give him headaches, and garbage stacked up in alleyways with a malodorous smell that was definitely not garbage. Talin drags himself through the shining streets, neon billboards mocking him as he mopes past them. People pass him with their heads down and their umbrellas opening, shuffling in eerie unison to avoid the rain. Students and young adults trying to make memories in such a depressing city run under overhangs and umbrellas at restaurants. Some run back out, splashing in puddles and dancing in the rain, soaking themselves to the bone. Cars whiz by, laughter and music spilling out, its cheery soul slowly fading out the farther the car went. Talin stares, trying to grasp onto the music in a desperate attempt to find some semblance of normalcy or happiness in the last few days of his being in Aurelia and in his future university studies.
The music flies out of his grasp and becomes a tune stuck in his head. Talin, having lost whatever figurative metaphor he was trying to find in the music or the love of life in his surroundings finds himself staring over the railing. Down below him were levels upon levels of communities, stretching down into the ground, extending thousands of feet below. Above him was the same, levels stretching upwards and curving towards the center, where a sliver of the sky was gleaming through.