stone boulevard

Part I - Rosensea

Out beyond the seas and rivers, in a world that neither you or I shall ever witness, there is a hard stone cliff that rises from a cold bay. And below that cliff in the waters of the bay stood an old iron lighthouse; the leftover relic of a forgotten trading capital. Long ago the trade had left seeking more beneficial opportunities in distant ports and the lighthouse was left to guard a town that had no need for guarding.

Away and removed from the bay and up upon the striking cliffs there sits a tree. The tree had sat there in solid wood since before any keystone of a building had ever been laid. It had witnessed the birth of Rosensea some century or so before and the mother cities and forefathers before that. Its age had hardened it beyond time, and it sat removed from all that it saw. In its roots turned tough from the exploits of bug and vermin it felt the force of change swirling in the air and dirt. And in its wisdom the tree knew an end was coming, the fiery change customary to all of Man's creations. The tree had seen the spring of creation and the fiery self destruction that always followed in its due course before. The birth of some small colony and its rise into security before invading cultures burned the huts, salted the land, and slaughtered and branded the peoples. But this change was different in some inexplicable sort of way, and so the old apathetic tree could not help but watch and wonder what end would come.

Far below the tree and set away from the cliffs in the actual city there sat a boy and a cat. The small duo sat on the retention wall, a dated construction that wore its own mortality on its sleeve with its bricks laying lopsided and its dilapidation evident in all aspects of its age. But none the less that wall served to separate the industrial buildings and cobblestone roads of Rosensea from that of the sharp rocks jutting from the harsh and unforgiving currents of water. Sitting there the boy played with his stray and watched the lowering glow of the spiraling sun into the water. Though 'played' is perhaps strong verbiage for the stray did less play and more so did cough and twitch while reclining in a collection of its own blood and bile. This did not seem good, but the cat assured the boy that it was absolutely fine.  Despite these theoretically kind words the cat seemed in no way well. And as such the boy and his stray watched the sun descend beyond the extending horizon and in the arks of dwindling light the smog filled sky darkened like a bruising wound in its shades of reds and violets.

Soon the boy found it was time to return home. But as the boy went to leave the stray made no move or effort to follow, so the boy had to pick it up and carry it. As the cat rose in his arm it lay like a piece of fabric, limp and dragging. As the boy went he thought about how the cat seemed almost entirely bone. And so the boy walked onward home.

Through the dark and dirty dusk lit by the haze of kerosene and smoke the boy went down street by street of cramped and stacked buildings. Rosensea was the kind of city that wound upon itself, the far devoid ancient urban planning forgot in the nightmare of over crowding and new buildings. With the lack of its usual populace the city seemed devoid yet whole, a hulking bent skeleton with no meat or skin upon its bone. An anemic city laying silent in its space, hollow.

The boy walked on through the hard packed cobbles of the city streets until his feet stung and his cold exposed fingers felt burning as he grasped onto the cat. Using all of his meager being to shield it from the burning and passing winds that dragged by and sliced into and through the pathetic ball of mass that was the cat. as the boy passed through the filth of the city he came across the last alley road that he was searching for, connected and behind the countless other spiraling paths and roads that made up the amalgamated creature that was Rosensea. A small and bent tin sign inlaid in the brick of cornerstone of one of the streets buildings said "Stone Boulevard". It was not by any particular means a pretty street but it was just what the boy was looking for.