Going Home, Part 01, Greak Oaks

Eric watched the skyline as he walked toward the city along Old Tiranis Way. He waited for it, anticipated it, and it still took his breath away when he finally made out the lightnings.

He stopped, look at where he stood, at the buildings still in the distance, but he knew that this was what being home felt like. Being able to look up and make out anything of the Grand Lightning Hotel. This was where Tiranis began, he knew it in his bones, even if there were no visual indications of it.

He set out again, and half an hour later he encountered the sign welcoming all to Tiranis, the City of Soaring Dreams. The Grand Lightning was pictured behind the words, as were two other buildings he didn’t know, but could see as part of the skyline. Two more contenders to the Lightning’s place at the defining Tiranis Landmark. The bottom of the sign stated that the population of Tiranis was twelve million people.

He continued walking, and more cars passed him from the ever-increasing number of side roads. One of the roads had a sign indicating to take it to reach the Expressway. A large number of cars came from that road.

Buildings began filling the fields; houses, garages, convenience stores. One had a large sign on its facade.

‘Great Oaks, the place to live’

The number of pedestrians increased too, but the road wasn’t busy. At the edge of the city, Eric felt the people here took things a little slower. Many stopped to talk for a moment before continuing, some greeted Eric with a smile as their paths crossed.

He greeted them back, the gesture feeling awkward. No one in the Swamp greeted another in such ways, unless it was to exchange insults, or threaten each other. He much preferred this.

He found his own steps slowing. He smiled at the men and women he passed and they smiled back. More than once he came across a woman he had to pause and admire, the most stunning had been an alligator with just enough heft to her to make holding her worthwhile. She happened to glace his way has he looked and her step lightened, she sashayed for his enjoyment, and he did enjoy.

When she disappeared among the other pedestrian he went back to his walk but he cherished that memory. It had been some time since he’d been the cause of a woman walking like that.

When he came to the intersection of Main Street, and Tiranis Road, Old Way had changed name at some point when he hadn’t been looking, he stopped. If he continued along Tiranis Road, he’d make it to a bridge, which would take him over the river, or he’d continue past that, past a few other bridges and walk in front of the Grand Lightning.

Only he found he wasn’t ready to leave Great Oaks, or even this neighborhood of it. He decided to head west on Main Street, away from the river, and see what was that way.

After only a couple of blocks the street became lined with storefronts. Most with stands by the door, displaying produces from the local farms and various wares, many looked homemade.

He bought a small basket of strawberries with a few stalks of rhubarb and sat at a terrace to enjoy them with a cup of spiced tea. And to watch the women walk by.

Some wore dresses for the warmer spring weather, but many more wore pants. It didn’t shock him, the women in the army didn’t have time for dresses, but it was different from when he’d enlisted. He also thought that overall the colors were much brighter.

He did enjoy how the pants highlighted the curves of the legs and hips, A gray rabbit wore a pair that was so tight on her, that for a moment he thought she’d had her fur painted instead. It was captivating in an almost lewd way, but a moment later a plump giraffe walked by in a pink sundress with a strap riding low on her shoulder, and the sides open so he caught a glimpse of her midriff and he forgot about the rabbit.

Another detail he noticed, couldn’t miss really, was that they at they all carried devices similar to the one Walter had had, and which he’d seen almost everywhere during his travel back. He hadn’t tried to figure out what they were before, but now, by eavesdropping on the people around him he learned they were phones.

They looked nothing like the phones he was familiar with, and while many talkon them, others looked at them. The woman seated next to him was tapping hers and nodding at what she saw.

He let the prickling lose and was immediately dazzled by the complexity of the device, the schematic had so much that until he expanded it, it was only tightly packed lines. And then it felt like an infinite number of small component. Even though he wasn’t trying to push himself beyond rationality, he could feel this pulling him toward madness.

He shut his eyes and pushed lines away. They fought him, the complexity wanted him to explore it, regardless of the consequences, but he finally managed to push everything away, and the prickling returned to ticking the back of his mind, reminding him of everything he was capable of, as if that knowledge would ever let him unleash it fully.

When he opened his eyes she was looking at him. He smiled at her. “Headache.” Then went back to drinking his tea and snack.

Among the near madness he had caught something of the design. Her phone could do more than transmit voice, it could transmit information, and process it too.

There had been talk of someone building something that could do that, when he was in the army, but the machine had been the size of a room, and it had used phone lines to communicate with its double.

Things had certainly improved while he was away.

He finished his food, then went back to following Main Street West. A few blocks later he came across Cavanaugh Avenue. If he took it north, the road would take him to Cavanaugh Architecture, if the building still stood. It was where the Lady Cavanaugh had designed the majority of the buildings that became landmarks in the city.

Only he didn’t remember the Avenue reaching this far south. He entered the next convenience store to buy a map to find out just how much larger the city had become. He couldn’t find them, and the clerk informed him they didn’t sell them since they were available online.

Eric thanked him, filed the expression as something to work out later and went looking for another store. It took five stores until he found one that had maps, on the bottom shelf of a rack, covered in dust, and five years out of date.

During his search he got to see someone use their phone up close, as they gave directions to a friend from it. This explained why paper maps were so rare, if everyone had a phone and they could look at the maps that way.

Now that he had his map, he could see that the majority of the changes had been on the outskirt. Great Oaks was a good example. In his youth it had been a small farming community a few miles away of what had been considered Tiranis proper.

His mother had taken him to the farmer’s market in the fall because she enjoyed the smells and she’d get some fruits for them. His dad never came. He couldn’t be bothered getting off the couch when he made it home.

What he remembered most of his mother was the canning. Every fall she would make the rounds of the markets and then put the season in glass jars. With them, they could enjoy tastes of the harvest all winter long.

She’d stopped doing that a few years before he enlisted. The local grocery had begun stocking fresh vegetables all year long from greenhouses and through trade agreements with neighboring countries.

His dad had complained throughout that first winter about how nothing tasted the way it should and his mother had told him directly that if he wanted canned vegetables the next winter he could do the work himself.

All that seemed to be left of those markets were the stalls by the doors of some stores.

Studying the map he could see more places where the city swallowed up towns, and turned them into suburbs and neighborhoods. There was Valdemir to the northwest, Fulton, just south of that, and Riveflow, on the east side of the Trench. They were now fully connected to Tiranis, where there had only had one or two roads going to the city before.

The air cooled, and the shadows grew longer, reminding him he needed a place to sleep. He’d slept outside before, but even when he’d had to do it in the army, he didn’t like it. He liked having an actual bed to sleep in.

Since his finances were low, the last job he’d taken was a few weeks before, he headed south on Cavanaugh, figuring that the cheaper motels would be on the edge of the town of Great Oaks, now district of Great Oaks.

He left the business area behind when he crossed Drury Street to enter a quiet residential one. A few block later, Mellows Road marked the start of a lower income neighborhood, and a few block past that, Felicity Street looked to be the demarcation of a fully abandoned area. Windows were boarded up, the lawns overgrown and ‘for sale’ signs were before every house, old and damaged signs.

Tulip Street transitioned him to a failing commercial street, where only one storefront in four had the lights on, but even they had bars on the windows. The one Eric tried, to ask if there was a motel nearby was locked.

He found the Blooming Tulip Motel three block past Tulip Street, at the corner of Gregor. The building inspired about as much confidence as the rest of the neighborhood, which was to say, very little, but they offered cheap weekly rates, and Eric needed a place to take off his shoes while he figured out his next a step.

The room was small. With only a bed and small kitchenette. But, and the clerk had said this as if it was the selling point of the room, it had a heater/cooling unit in the window. The bathroom was common to the rooms on this floor, and he had to provide everything.

As he ended his shower he was happy to be human. It was a joy he’d felt often, as it meant his toiletries fit in a small bag and one towel was enough. It had been a common complaint among the furries in the army that there was never enough towels.

With the day’s dirt cleaned off he went back to his room, lied down and was immediately out.