Veridis Quo

Chapter 41 - The Mare in Black

What was the first season?

As in – when the world was in its primordial cradle, millions of years after the late heavy bombardment ended and temperatures dropped to an average cozy twenty Celsius, what was the first distinctive season that had formed?

Was it summer? The world was really hot back then, the whole cooling process should be a dead giveaway.

Or was it spring? What about winter? The world could've remained a flatline on a metaphorical monitor until the first cold snap happened, sending the rocky ball into the freezer for it to become the forbidden snowball.

That was a question for the modern philosophers among us. It was also one I'd asked on stream absentmindedly which escalated into a full-blown war in the chat after dying three times to bow kids.

It didn't contribute anything – the truth. It was just a passing thought, one that happened to pop in at a random time for no apparent reason.

Nevertheless, the current season was Autumn, and it was in bloom.

Well, saying bloom was misleading.

The western coast of the island nation has experienced very light rain in the past week, half an hour of tip-top droplets on my head. For any slowpokes around, it was the final sign to put on the jacket. I had done so the nanosecond October rolled in.

Depressingly, the citizens of Yamoto didn't have their version of a spooky holiday during the previous month. Maybe it was more popular in the west?

I didn't actually know if the Japanese celebrated Halloween, probably not.

I was away from home, wasn't I?

Launched from the North American continent into space only to fall back on the opposite side of the Pacific coast. The poem sung itself to sleep.

I didn't have anywhere to call home, though, so the loss wasn't huge...

Miya could buy me a house if I cried hard enough... a few favors for some officials or something... promote snake oil...

Ew, snake oil? Can oil be extracted from snakes like that? No anesthesia, nothing?

That was a cruel image, so I dumped it into the firepit.

It wasn't the first time I tried to burn something to ashes because it disturbed me. There was that time, this thing, that kiss, a bunch of surprises.

Stuff, you know?

The whole overzealous, terminally online wackos.

That didn't happen.

It was a freak accident, like my younger self stumbling across a drawn image of a big black basketball player and a curvy bunny.

But Johnny boy-

IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.

But-

LALALA.

...

...

Was I talking to myself? And if so, was that healthy?

Lately, I've been thinking of a lot of things. And these things were in turn raising more questions; a waterfall of gasoline onto a pit of an exposed, ignited natural gas source.

Sniff, sniff...

Ugh, someone farted.

"Johnny-san, are you paying attention?"

"Hm? Oh, yes, yes," I nodded, the surroundings coming back into focus.

I was in the club where a moment was never quiet and talent and skill were secondaries to passion by a razor shave. My fellow musicians-in-the-making were doing their thing, practicing various instruments.