Ree-Imagined Worlds

The shop was one of several on the outskirts of the village.

It was one of a string of shopfronts standing sheepishly next to a run of haughty houses, as though aware they were unwelcome interlopers. Across the road, planned green areas had dwindled into indifferent, unkempt areas which then drifted into over-long grasses which clustered around increasing numbers of trees the further you got away from the road.

Someone in local government with regrettable levels of optimism and zeal had pushed through rezoning measures in the name of revitalisation, hybrid living and progress, before being quietly promoted to an administration-intensive department where their energy could be effectively re-channeled.

But in the meantime, the damage was done and a succession of tenants struggled to get any of the shops to find their feet.

Just that day, yet another tenant had been spotted moving boxes upon boxes upon crates into the third shop from the left. It was the one with the lavender paint on its shopfront, the legacy of its previous tenant, a failed florist. The sign declared its name (with sad prescience) in pretty curlicue lettering to be Flowersend.

That very night, three youths with a string of petty crimes behind them broke into the shop.

As it happened, it was one of those nights where the clouds were an eerie white blanket over the dark, still earth. Not romantic. Not matter-of-fact. Where the primitive instincts born of long-ago memories rise through layers of suppression and socialisation to make you uneasy, wary, of the waiting dark.

It was the kind of night where, if you believed in the supernatural, you would know otherworldly beings were out and about tonight and you would prudently retreat indoors. The kind of night where, if you were a stolid, unimaginative type, your mind would nevertheless dredge up all the creepy real life crime dramas you’d ever consumed to gnaw at your thoughts. The kind of night where, even if you resolutely didn’t believe in anything to do with ghost stuff, you would still walk a bit faster to get into the warmth and light of inside, and then heave an unconscious sigh of relief once the door closed behind you.

The trees across the road held up their branches and leaves in high, still supplication, witnesses to the shop door being skilfully prised open.

The three figures stood and stared around at a silent room, their eyes adjusting. It was heavy with darkness and shadows, but there was enough light they could see around them. They could see the place had books all neatly shelved in the floor-to-ceiling shelves. As though they’d always been there.

“Why are we here, man? This is just another junkshop coming here to die.” The youngest of the three was the most ill-at-ease, gloved hands taking turns to reach repeatedly in the hoodie pocket for the comfort of a mobile phone left behind.

“They didn’t start with a paint job outside. And they had a ton of boxes.” The leader was confident. He knew how to read the clues. This shop was different, and he intended to find out what the stock was going to be.

He took a step forward. A floorboard creaked loudly into the shadows and they all froze, eyes darting under masks, adrenaline and other substances coursing through veins, and hearts thumping.

“How’d they get the shelves stacked so quick?” The third voice was doubt-soaked. Unhappy. Ready to wimp out.

The leader shook his own doubt off his spine and injected the sneering bravado that got everyone doing his bidding. “One by one?” That helped him feel on solid ground, so he added more. “Not everyone stacks shelves slow like you!”

The youngest snickered obediently on cue.

“They took the boxes out of the van, dumped them in here like they weighed nothing and they drove off. They didn’t unpack anything. We saw them.” The third voice fired back. “Anyway, if this is all old books, there’s nothing here. I’m out.”

Aware the youngest would take any excuse to scurry away like a rat, the leader saw something and strode towards a table with a small pile of stuff on it. Anything that looked like something. To get them something from tonight. “Here. What’s this?”

Nerves made his movements jerky and the top notebook bounced, slipped and juggled under his fingers, before falling open in the leader’s fingers to reveal a sketchbook.

A sketchbook with a very ordinary, very ugly drawing of a flower.

Before they could do more than draw a derisive breath, before their very eyes, the flower drawing started… changing.

“What the he–?” The leader breathed.

They stared fascinated, unable to look away, as the flower drawing splintered, broke apart, disintegrated.

The flower became a bunch of explosions, red and yellow fury controlled on the page. Magma flying, getting caught in another explosion of lava-red-yellow heat. Entire stars and planets being destroyed and re-born and re-destroyed.

The stem and leaves were simultaneously pulsing, pixelating and ripping apart in cold, unearthly blue-white light.

All the colours were burning, coalescing and imprinting into the youths’ wide, unblinking eyes.

Then, the flower disintegrated and sat on the page as a blur. Falling into spent, coloured ashes.

Darkness peered over the youths’ shoulders, smiled coldly and lingered.

The book fell from the leader’s fingers and he turned and led the way out of the shop. Not running, but definitely walking fast. The other two were eagerly on his heels.

Watched by the silent shapes of trees under the white night clouds, they strode up the road and parted ways wordlessly at the roundabout. Shoulders bowed, heads bent, feet fast in their separate directions. Determined to forget what they’d seen.

***

In the morning, the bookshop owner picked up the notebook from the floor and closed it carefully, exhaling softly.

The ashes had already imperceptibly begun re-shaping themselves into the flower shape.

It was a pity, thought the bookshop owner, that preventing the destruction of the world required the sacrifice of human lives.

But in this case, it seemed as if the notebook had found a deserving candidate. Maybe more than one. That would help. The more to take the brunt, the longer the road to the next point of destruction. As was the way, this one (or ones) would have to make their peace with the world soon.

The notebook owner carefully manoeuvred the notebook into a far-away corner of a darkened top shelf, at the very back. Ready to retrieve it when it called again. Just like it had done many times before.

And across the road, the waiting trees shimmered the air into the sky.

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Backstory: this story idea very much came from the image(s). I was playing with the original image in my photoshop express app and discovered this tool which broke up the image. I had fun with it and then got taken with how ‘explode-y’ and ‘destructive’ the image looked. And out came the story.