She stands, a fixed point in space if not time, hushed and solemn as the rainy world of the under-city undulates around her. Swimming, swirling, even, in the solitary gutter it creates as the sky suddenly opens, and nothing rises into it, but instead everything falls down, collapsing in dribbles and rivulets at her feet.
Customers! Customers! We've got customers!
They circle her, wanting her, but not touching her, not yet. There are paths she may yet take – forwards, left, right, or collapsing to the ground in a stream of tears, but the one path she cannot take is backwards. That path has been erased like the footprints of many like her who have come to this place before now. Drip by drop, they have been washed away … somewhere else. Somewhere she wishes she could go, for then, instead of dreary rain and the applegrass of the upper city far, far, far above her head and out of her reach, there would be the possibility of golden lights and the scent of applegrass once again blowing through her hair.
Ah, but that would be the backwards path: remembrance.
How long you been there? Happy! You want Happy!
Happy, Happy, lovely happy Happy!
Remembrance is a poison, she finds. It's an armor that pierces her skin instead of protecting her. With every step, undulation, drop of rain or stream of tears, it sinks into her a little deeper, making sure it owns her above all else. Above anyone else. She closes her eyes and the rivulets escape faster, from her eyes and from the clouds, pressing, swirling, undulating faster and faster until she is no longer fixed in space but is hurtling away from it, just away, not caring towards what.
She stumbles forwards.
She opens her eyes and searches their faces, the gray skies, the puddle at her feet.
She knows what she cannot have.
Happy, Happy, lovely happy Happy!
Bliss is too much to ask for.
Mellow istoo little.
I've got Forget, my darling. What strength? How much you want forgetting?
She sighs, an eternity of remembrances escaping in the air from her lips like a howl on a stormy night, as the rivulets pool at her feet and collapse into the pavement, washing away the footprints as she takes another step …
