Astra

Chapter 2 - Back in the Real World

Chapter 2 – Back in the Real World

I listened to the tale the voice told me of his world. I even heard his aside to an aide or mentor (I’m guessing by the sound of his voice) asking if this would work. I assumed he meant the beaming his voice across the universe. But then he went on to explain Astra and I found myself becoming fascinated by the world he was telling me about. The physics alone sounded amazingly complex. How did they breathe on the other planets? Why did fire die if it was removed from Tận? How did a world like this function? The physics must be completely different to what humans considered the natural order of things.

I ran upstairs, my hunger forgotten. I hit pause on my iPod and to my astonishment the voice halted mid-word. I opened my computer and began typing what I could remember of what the man had said. I wasn’t sure of all of it so I attempted rewinding the track obscurely labelled Astra on my iPod. The rewinding worked. I was ecstatic I didn’t have to miss a single word of what the chocolate voice was telling me.

He told me of the war his people had fought over colour and I snorted with disgust. I was a little offended that he blamed humanity for that particular corruption of his people, but I acknowledged to myself that it was true that we had a large amount of racism in our world. You only needed to turn on the news to see the death and destruction wrought by the Palestinians against the Jews, the American’s against the Arabs, black against white, white against black. People ostracised for their colour or racial group. People rejected for their cultural practices.

I listened and typed, pausing the track occasionally when I needed to catch up. I typed and listened until the sun came up. The first birdcalls outside my window startled me into the knowledge of my surroundings and the fact that I had only slept for five hours the night before. I was exhausted and pushed pause just after typing the words... “We are again at a similar crossroads in our history...” It seemed a fitting place to stop.

I crawled towards my bed suddenly aware that I hadn’t eaten anything but way too tired to do anything about it now. I was asleep before I even knew that my eyes were closed.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

A dratted ringing noise woke me. RING! RING! A pause. RING! RING!

“Katharina!” my mother called up the stairs. “There is someone on the phone for you! Answer it in your room!” RING! RING!

“Damn!” I muttered as I rolled over and began groping the night-stand for my hot dog shaped phone that was normally on the night stand. RING! RING! I couldn’t seem to find it and that incessant ringing was irritating me. RING! RING!

I was going to have to open at least one eye, something I had resisted thus far. RING! RING! I cracked one eye open enough to see the blurry night-stand. RING! RI- My hand landed on the phone cutting short the second ring.

“Hello,” I spoke huskily while allowing the half open eye to fall shut. “Rina here?”

“Miss von Lichtenstein, I’m calling from La Cafe Granda about the job you applied for yesterday. I am delighted to inform that you have been granted a trial week. Standard procedure...” The voice kept talking but somewhere amidst the expected pay and rules on tips I stopped listening.

Applying for jobs seemed so much longer ago than just yesterday. So much had happened since then. The dreams, the voice... I sat up... the voice!

“Thank you for informing me,” I spoke into the phone,” when do I start?” I wanted this conversation over with so I could check that the voice was not a dream brought on by not eating or something like that. I looked around my room as if something would hold a clue as to what had really happened yesterday.

“Well one of barista’s is off sick for the rest of the week so we were hoping you could come in today for your training? And then work for the rest week? If we like your work we will put you on a regular shift after that? I just explained all this.” His voice sounded puzzled. Oh crap! This was the coffee shop job that I wanted the most. It was only ten minutes walk from my house and would be perfect for me when I was running late.

“Oh I’m sorry, I just got to bed late last night because of some personal things so I was still asleep when you phoned. Apparently I’m taking a few minutes to wake up. So you need me today? I’ll be there in about a half hour? Is that acceptable?”

“Certainly,” he replied. “We look forward to seeing you.”

This was great! I was happy about this job. It really was a perfect place to work. But I had to hurry if I wanted to grab a shower before I needed to leave. I groaned as I pulled myself out of bed and towards my en suite bathroom. I splashed water on my face to wake me up then flicked shower on. My shower always took a few minutes to warm up.

Walking back to my room I started rifling through my cupboard for some suitable clothes. I pulled out jeans and a black t-shirt. I knew that the barista’s at the cafe wore black and green but they’d have to give me a uniform. I didn’t have green in my wardrobe. It wasn’t a good colour on me. I piled a bra and panties on top of the clothes on my arm and hurried back to the bathroom.

I pulled off the maroon dress I was wearing from yesterday and tossed it on top of the wet clothes that still lay in the corner. I made a note to take them downstairs and throw them either in the washing machine or the dryer before they went all mildewy.

Stepping under the shower was like jumping into heaven. The water thrummed down on my shoulders and gave me a sense of peace. Suddenly I had a vision of a bathroom lined with brown, blue and khaki stones. The stones picked up and reflected the light entering the bathroom. The light was dazzling in a special way. But it wasn’t the bathroom that interested me so much as the naked man standing in the middle of it.

He was looking straight at me. I could feel his gaze raking over my naked skin. I shivered but kept looking at him. His eyes were green; a deep forest green. His hair was white like snow but not like snow, it sparkled in the reflected light, but it was tinged with the colours of the rainbow and I knew that you could look at if forever and not see all of its shades. But all of that I noticed later after I had looked my fill of his skin. His skin was incredible, unbroken golden skin with no tan lines no differences in shade from his head to his feet. It was taunt and stretched over just the right amount of muscle. He was built perfectly, every muscle was defined but not so much that it was all that was noticeable, and ooh boy he was definitely growing interested in seeing me.

All I wanted was to touch that skin. It was so inviting. I wanted to see if it was firm as it looked. He was watching me with a curious intentness. A focus I had never experienced before. He was curious about me, I could see that. I sensed that he was afraid to speak for some reason, but why I didn’t know.

It was probably five minutes later that he took a breath and asked “Who are you?” in a voice that I recognised.

The moment the words left his mouth I felt as if I was sucked into a whirlpool. The scene before me dissolved and I found myself under my shower back in my bathroom gasping for air as if I had just run a mile in under a minute.

All I could think about as I threw my clothes on and headed for my first day of work was how incredibly weird my hot dream-vision of a naked man had been.