Tales From New Jump City

9. An Ordinary Walk

It was a bright and sunny afternoon. People were shuffling down the street passed street performers and caricature artists while electric cars and busses carted people through city streets. Above everything was the Skyloft Skyscraper towered above the city, visible from almost every part of the city with vegetation growing out from intricately patterned steel that branched out to support distinct sections on the building that resembled mechanical glass flowers containing restaurants, apartments and much more. The centerpiece of the building was looked like a tree that had an observatory deck that looked out over the city; it was so high that the sun sets at a different time.

Down below people walked passed storefronts and apartment buildings. Standing near a local street food vendor with the sun beating down on her light brown skin was none other than local highschool journalist Emi.

Her hair in the middle of her head was tied up into a bun, while the rest of her poofy curly light brown hair flowed onto the tops of her shoulders. She wore flowy floral patterned pants and a floral top that showed off her mid-drift. She wore a breathable yellow jacket with the sleeves rolled up. She tilted her aviator sunglasses down to look at the various skewers laden over a charcoal fire.

The tapestry of aromas filled her nostrils, tangoing softly on her olfactory membrane sending a rainbow of signals to her limbic system in the brain. The savory smells of various seasoned meat and veggie skewers danced through her frontal lobe before tiptoeing through her thalamus, before blasting its way through her hippocampus and amygdala, causing her mouth to water and her stomach to roar.

"I'll take that, that and that. Oh an' can I get that one too? And one Jacque-o-cola please."

Emi walked away holding multiple skewers with cuts of chicken, beef, tentacles, shrimp; along with some veggies and mushrooms, with a wide range of spices to bring it all together. She took bites from various skewers while taking sips from her reusable bendy straw, placed in Jaque's name-brand cola with a cartoon depiction of his face, mustache and all.

"Weird how that kid has a mustache," Emi said to herself.

She continued to walk down the street eating her skewers when a man blocked her path.

"Yo," he said. He sported some fake chains and walked with a lackluster swagger. Every time he spoke a tacky fake grill that read lyrical miracle was visible. "You busy right now?" Emi rolled her eyes at this display. She continued to walk without speaking to either of them. As she was walking past them, one of them snatched her cola out of her hands and swapped it with a CD.

"The hell?!" Emi exclaimed. "Give me back my soda!"

"Don' worry bout this lil mami.'' He wrapped his mouth around the bottle and chugged the rest of the bottle in a couple of gulps before tossing the bottle aside onto the pavement, shattering along the ground. "That right there is a one of a kind mix from yours truly, for the low price of free."

"Whatever..." Emi muttered as she began to walk away with the disc in hand. The man blocked her again.

"Woh! Woh! Woh! A donation would be very helpful to a strugglin' artist such as myself. Let's say five. Nah, scratch that. Ten dollars." He held his hand out expectantly. Before Emi could react, other rappers that were pushing their mixtapes saw that Emi had been stopped, and started herding around her.

"Yo wassup."

"Ay hon', check my track."

One by one they began piling CDs into her hands. Emi was getting more and more fed up, her happy expression contorting into anger.

"Lemme know what you think. Maybe we can talk bout it over some fries." The original wannabe OG said.

Emi's expression went from angry to blank. She let out a sigh before dropping all the mixtapes onto the pavement. Everyone looked at her in awe as she then began to start furiously stomping on each of the mixtapes into pieces while shouting.