the garden within the wasteland

Casimir.

I ran away again. I may have held that conversation, but is that really something to take pride in? It all felt suffocating and frustrating, but all I can do is express that emotion within each step on the padded stone floor, trying to find the balance. I don't want to draw any attention by stepping too loud, but I also don't want to disappear into silence. I didn't know where to go from here.

I knew this kingdom like the back of my hand, yet I fear it doesn't recognize me every time I step on its interlinking roads. With the shop now behind me and my path forward, the city was filled with life and vibrance, yet every glance of mine was met with sneers absorbed in color and life kindred with the silk they wore. Gathered around the shops and buildings were constant huddles of people like spores, each of a different walk of life and different outfits, yet embraced all the same. I have known that same soft warmth of community, yet it rarely lasted longer than a candle under the rain.

The day was still long even if the sun had begun to set; this city doesn't sleep, and I won't find any rest today. Each group is a planted fortress, unwavering yet welcoming, yet their gates are tainted with my failed attempts, even if I wished to meet with them to join their conversation to be consumed by their traditions and practices. I find my words choked, grabbed, crushed, and crumbled back into my throat, the debris closing it. My entire body was in a warm clasp; a hand identical to mine restrained me by the throat, two more held and pushed in my ankles, and another shifted both of my hands downwards till I could not embarrass myself anymore. "They would hate me. I would be nothing more than an annoyance," spoke the hands, itching out their words with their nail. Like the tale of the wandering swordsmen, I continuously search for death, yet none would gift it.

I tried to walk past them, past the center of this kingdom, to excuse myself from their background vision, to become part of a more unseen ambiance, yet even as I faked the purpose in my steps, I felt the debris tighten around my throat and my heart racing with my mind on who shall outspeed light, but perhaps a simple stroll may let me blend into the town once more; my green skin already contradicted the earthly colors and earthly jewels, and I don't want my existence to contradict the only social rule that holds all these castaways, the singular chain wrapped around each heart and connected in a long chain that is yet to pierce my chest. Yet I can still read the inscription etched into it, the same inscription engraved into the floor.

"live content, established, and in perennial"

the oath every citizen took the moment they entered the city, whether they acknowledged it or not, and one no one has failed to uphold yet, not even I, to some extent. I'm not dead yet.

I wanted to keep walking, accompanied by my thoughts and watched over by the indifferent sky and half-awake sun. Yet a familiar beckoning passion vocalized, a voice like the strike of a hammer struck through the air, yet left the empty spaces between the spoken words soft and tender; it took me no more than a single thought to recognize the volatile voice. the drink... as the other people called him, whether it was an inside joke I'm unaware of or the truth, I really didn't know. But it was a welcoming audible embrace that I knew the path of.

A constant content was that temple carved into the stone, each strike of the chisel driven by a madness invoked by the heavens, as was rumored, its singular opening left open for all, if you could step around all the shoes left at the front of the building, that is. It's quite strange how no one had thought to just steal these shoes before. Thinking about it, I can't even remember the last time I heard of a crime happening in Azthryua.

I took off my shoes and hid them among the rest and began to enter the temple; there was nothing more than a singular carpet that many made a home. Some were sat with an intense look on their face as they looked upwards to the preaching man at the end of the room, some kept their eyes closed with an unconscious smile on their face, and others seemed to be asleep despite the thundering calls of the veiled man. I knew I had to find a seat soon, and preferably not next to someone.