Descent From the Blossoms: Grid City by Christopher Barnett

Author:Christopher Barnett [Barnett, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

Southern Deliveries

Within the Southern Docks, beside the acidic bay that cradled Grid, a small building leaned slightly to the left. Its roof lightly touching the wall of its neighbor. The bricks at the foundation were cracked and weak; it was amazing the building was still standing at all. What was more amazing was that roughly half a dozen people called the building their home, mostly living on the second floor.

On the third floor, the apartments were slightly misaligned, enough to keep most people away from occupying a majority of them, but not everyone. In the eighth apartment, because she liked the number eight, lived a slightly chubby, dark-haired girl by the name of D.

Inside D’s apartment was chaos. The space was covered in boxes. There were empty boxes, new boxes, plain boxes, red boxes, polka-dotted boxes, custom shaped boxes. Boxes of all kinds.

Somewhere within the cluster of boxes was a thin, worn-out mattress, lying flush on the floor. Boxes towered around it, obscuring it from the view of the rest of the apartment. Atop the mattress, bundled under a thick patchwork quilt, was D. Her body was twisted and concealed beneath her blanket, her pale leg sticking out in the open air. Every few moments she would rustle, and her leg would twist and contort in ways that looked uncomfortable.

An ear-vibrating ring erupted through the small apartment. D immediately rocketed upright; her dark hair tangled in a knot to one side of her head. Her green eyes were wide and filled with bewilderment. It took a half second for D to realize what was going on, after which she dove into the sea of cardboard that surrounded her. Towers of stacked boxes collapsed, creating more chaos than there already was. It continued screeching and ringing without remorse as she swam through the sea of cardboard. She was close; she could feel the ringing in her teeth. Finally, she found the source hidden beneath a pile of boxes near the kitchen counter.

An alarm clock. It was time to go to work.

D’s alarm clock was custom-built by a friend of hers, Boris. It was a simple design; two bells sat atop a circular clock with a tiny metal pin between them. It would bounce from bell to bell twice a day when the time aligned with a preset dial. The once-vibrant clock was now a dull, faded red, standing on four thin metal legs.

The alarm was still ringing. She flipped the switch in the back of the clock and the room fell mercifully silent. She stood up from the cardboard waves, the alarm clock still in her hand, and placed it on the counter, knocking several boxes to the floor without concern. The dark-haired girl looked around her small apartment and groaned in frustration. She didn’t have time to clean.

She never did.

D quickly threw on her dark blue shirt and knee-length shorts. Besides the white lettering across the back, ‘D’s Delivery Service’, the shirt was plain. No pockets or artwork. No other logos or slogans.

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