Dust and dusk settled over the pair as they hiked through the cracked earth that made up most of the Flatlands. Sweat trickled down his skin and soaked through most of his clothes. It was devastatingly hot, despite the buckets of dry, earthy wind that blew through them. If anything, it made Sticks feel even hotter—like he was being fanned by a blow dryer. In the beginning, the land was mostly empty aside from rows upon rows of would-be-white greenhouses and giant should-be-white wind turbines. The sunset had glazed them all with a hazy, dreamy, and soupy orange. Eventually, the pair of them had made it onto one of the roads, and after walking for hours, pieces of a suburban shanty town began to unveil itself before him.
A hazy, sun bleached sign marked their arrival into Joji Town, a place that had the bones of hope. Identical townhouses and symmetrical cul-de-sacs with backyard pools outlined by once lush coconut trees, now stood hobbled and sun beaten, surrounded by corpses of dried, yellow flora. Private parks that were supposed to be a green getaway were now filled with cinder block benches, magazine debris, shopping carts, and makeshift stalls made of planks and leftover furniture. Every store and building was branded by a spray of graffiti and was perforated with a curious scent that was like burnt hair, possibly stemming from the array of industrial factories, which worked on the daily, churning thick wads of black smoke that bloomed over the horizon and misted over their skies. Broken beer bottles and glass sanded the sidewalk, and there wasn't a trace of concrete that wasn't touched by grease.
A police car whizzed by and for a second Sticks thought all was lost, but the vehicle skirted away, nearly knocking over a garbage can as it did. Someone screamed. But nobody seemed to care. With his hood up and most of his pink skin hidden, Sticks and Tendril were like the hundreds of other shaggy residents of Joji Town. They walked mindlessly. Like drones.
Tendril noticed the look on Sticks's face. "Disappointed?"
Sticks frowned. "I didn't think Atlanticana would be so...uhm—"
"Poor? Trashy?"
"—different...?" Nearby, an overweight stranger, wearing a torn bandana and a roughed up fanny pack, coughed up a wad of phlegm and spat the snot some spaces away from Sticks's shoe. The muck was yellow and diseased.
"You were expecting sparkles and roses?" Tendril asked. He sounded more tired than sarcastic.
Sticks didn't answer.
The two of them eventually took refuge at a dingy WacDonalds, which somehow managed to smell worse than they did with their sweat and dumpster clothes. In the corner, there was a small television showing grainy footage of a pair of gaudy talk show hosts. Or news anchors. It was difficult to tell—
"Goooooooood evening Atlanticoonies! We got ourselves a BLACKOUT—You heard it here folks, Joji Town just can't catch itself a break with its 5th power outage of the week!"
"That's hee-larious, Donald!"
"That's right, Cheryl—The hungry hundreds of last week have turned to thousands! But in brighter news, we got an update regarding the disappearance of everyone's favorite Grammable star, Molly Weasel—"
"Oh no way, Donald!"
"That's right folks—After two excruciating hours, our miss Molly has been found stuck under the cabinet of one of her yachts!
"Oh thank god, Dona—"
"And thank god for that—what a disaster that has been! Family, friends and fans can now rest easy knowing that their star is safe and well— AND, we got ourselves an EXCLUUUUUUsive interview with Molly and her turbulent survival coming up right here on 'GOODIE ATLANTICOONIES'—Stay tuned!"
YOU ARE READING
Evil Is Pink (bxb)
AksiyonSTICKS is like any other good boy. All he wants to do is to win the approval of his brilliant, scientific genius of a father, who thinks Sticks is about as bright as a toilet seat. Just one thing though. His father might just be the city's local Sup...
