The Key Between Stranger Realms - Day One

On this ordinary morning, the barista trades me a cup of energy for seven dollars and a smile. We’ve never been acquainted, for I’m certain I’d remember an exuberance like hers.

She’s dressed in countless layers of lace tanks with an overlapping knitted cardigan. Braids are wrapped in a crown around her head, and she has more rings than fingers. I don’t know her, right?

She watches me with icy eyes — prisms of different dimensions and passages into other realms. There, I discover her secret life: an oracle in a world that relies on signs and messages from the universe. She delivers them kindly for seven coins and a smile.

I am a frequent guest of her tower. How did I forget?

“Did you get lost again?” she asks with a toothy grin, prismatic gems encrusting the surface of her canines.

“How can you get lost in a place you did not know is fiction?” I question, eyeing the contents of her potions cabinet like a curious bystander with only time to give.

“Because it is not entirely unreal,” she says, thrusting the brim of a golden chalice against my lips.

I drink without hesitation. I trust her, yes?

As the haze fades from my mind, I begin to understand the confusion. Here and there, then and now are all connected somehow. No, not by coincidence; I am the key to unlocking the reality in between.

***

Hello, wanderer!

This is part of a new mini series called The Key Between Stranger Realms. If you want to keep reading, Day Two is available here:

xoxo,

for now,

your friend, lost in thought