Electricity

Maybe this was how summer nights always go. It all falls down on you- the heat, exhaustion, drowsiness. The air is thick of everything-the sound of chirping crickets, the peepers in the pond bed, and the snoring butterflies. Things make more noise, or maybe you just notice more. There are also scents that thicken your senses, painting them with fresh coats of summer- the heavy scent of melting tar, steaming flowers, barbeques gone on far too long so that even the family pet is sick of teriyaki steak sauce. But not everything is so over loaded in the summer- secret midnight breezes star-kiss tendrils of the weeping willow that hang seductively over moon-light pools. Tonight the moon hangs full and round and slightly rose colored like the cheek of some celestial star-goddess child. Moonshine roses bloom, their petals a gothic mix of antique spider lace and summer mist. Different flowers bloomed in the midnight garden, white lilies, their stems pumped with radioactive blue fairy blood, their petals glitterized with crystallized dew. This garden was only in one place: the electric city.
                                      
The fairy girl danced to a wild beat played only by Apollo himself. She watched him as she twirled her fairy dace, her eyes matching the ferocity of a caged tiger. The pixie guitars trickled to a stop like sand from an hour glass, and the elf girl left the stage.
Silvers found her in the alley outside of the theater, her golden-black hair hung in sweaty strands in front of her eyes.
“It’s been a while…” Asrai spoke first, her voice a mixture of longing and regret.
Silvers shrugged and kicked at the cobble stone “I guess, I’ve been gone for a while…” His voice was distant, and it reminded her of when they were young, living in the butterfly infested alleys, drinking ambrosia and strawberry champagne out of fountains. Asrai slipped an indigo sweatshirt over her bare shoulders, her voice laced with a new determination, “Let’s go. We can have fun. It’ll be just like old times”. Silvers shook his head reflecting fractions of light everywhere like a scattered rainbow shower, but he followed her into the winding passages of Electric City none the less.

Asrai never really grew up, here in her world of sugar and lights. She was trapped in a glowing Never-Never-land, looking out at the world with child-like denial. They went dancing. Silvers twirled Asrai around and around, his silk tunic gracing his slender form with enchanted butterfly kisses. Asrai’s spider-lace gown spun like a cerulean inferno, as they twirled across the balcony of the midnight garden under the neon electric light of the astraeus gas station star. Spirits and people walked the paths, ribbons of electric stars strung from column to column like an exotic crystallized Paris. Silvers was ten again. Skirting through bystanders, Fairy-ice candies clutched in his fist, but instead of candies, he ran through the hidden tunnels and narrow illuminated streets of Electric city, holding the rice-paper-pale hand of Asrai. Hanging lanterns and balconies strung with cloths lines filled with exotic nymph costumes, feathers, and jewels took on a slightly blurry appearance, and he was sure he was more than a little drunk; on this girl, on his home, and mostly wine.

Asrai lead him to the place they had come as children. A wooden oriental bridge over looking the river, complete with worn planks black shingles, pink cotton candy gondolas, and hanging Japanese lanterns intertwined with ivy and vinca over the archway.
“Where were you?” He was taken aback by the tone of her voice. So serious. So sad.
“You were gone for two years. Not even a word. Where were you?”
Silvers looked at her, taking in every detail. Her subtle cheek bones, her delicate nose, her slender chin. She seemed so young now; everything he loved about her seemed so far away now.  “I’ve done things. Seen things you could never imagine. Mountain tops, big enough for five Electric Cities. We could go there, you and me. I could show you the world.”
“Isn’t this enough?” Her question was simple enough, but he couldn’t even begin to answer her.
“No. It isn’t”
Silvers saw the spreading change in her expression as she realized he was never coming back again. Asrai lifted her face to his, her kiss melting into his like dissolving star fruit, as the first blush of dawn appeared like out spread fingers over the sugar-spun clouds. In her eyes, a combined eos of life and death, she really would be young forever. He felt the change inside him like clockwork wound too tight, and her touch dissolved into water against his lips and face. Asrai, the Electric City, and his childhood faded into water and moon-mist before his eyes, leaving only a bare terrain and desiccated river bed where the city once stood. Silvers had grown up.