Guava, Fudge Ripple and a Cherry
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Ganymede
Rating: G
Challenge: Guava #10: it’s a guy thing, Fudge Ripple #22: foolishness
Toppings/Extras: cherry (present tense), pocky chain
Wordcount: 700
Summary: Why can’t men just ask for directions? Ashdown ponders upon it.
Notes: Pockies! Seven-part pocky chain. Ashdown’s misadventures continue. Cherry three for the back-to-school challenge. EDIT: cut link thingie appeared twice and I can't get rid of it, but the writing itself only appears once, so never mind. :)
It’s dizzyingly high-and of course, it would be. He’s on floor one-hundred-and-ninety-eight of Hamlet Tower. And the floor is completely open air. It has four support beams and a ceiling, and stairs up to the next floor up, but it has no walls. Ashdown’s not sure how he feels about that, but it certainly isn’t a feeling of safety.
The walkways have large barriers around them but he can’t help his trepidation. But there are little girls using those walkways. Time to steel himself and bite the bullet. Time to go, go, go. What’s the worst that could happen?
-----
It’s amazing, how people can live without the ground beneath their feet. Walkways surround every skyscraper, clinging to them like a precipice path on the side of a cliff, and at almost every corner of every ‘scrape there’s an elevator. He’s not sure what they are, and he certainly doesn’t trust them.
All of the skyscrapers are joined together with blinding white glass walkways and tunnels. So many people, they’re everywhere! He’s never seen so many people in one place. Of course, he would never revert to their ridiculous clothing, but he wishes that people would stop staring at him.
-----
By now he has no idea where he is, but he has learned how to use the elevators. They’re quite handy, actually. Punch in a number and it takes you to that floor. He tried to make it take him to the ground floor, but it wouldn’t let him.
Apparently nobody’s allowed.
Oh, for some solid ground beneath his feet! He wanders further and ends up in a large park. He nearly faints with relief: plants! Trees! How he’s missed it. He was never much of a nature-lover, but he realises now just how uplifting a well-placed flower can be.
-----
The park is substandard. Fake leaves and neon flowers. Where is this hellish place, and why is he here? The ceiling has some sort of shining blue material pasted over it and plenty of atmospheric lights, but it’s not fooling anyone. He sits on a bench gloomily. Perhaps this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he should go back to Hamlet Tower. If only he knew where it was.
It would be fine if he was a woman, wouldn’t it? But, oh no, a man asks for directions and he’s either a total nutcase or a failure of the gender. Pah.
-----
Walking is tiring him out. People are still staring. Some funny men have started following him and he doesn’t like it. Ashdown knows that he’s clever, he knows that he can handle most things, but now he’s tired and bored and it’s getting a bit dark. Prowse is nowhere to be found and people keep jabbering at him. Words that make no sense.
“Nice wig, bender!”
“Are you OK?”
“What’s with the tights?”
“Whoa, check it out.”
And more. And more. And more. He wants to go home, and he means his real home, even if it means facing Verity.
-----
“Hey,” smiles a young man. Ashdown jumps out of his skin. He had nearly fallen asleep on yet another park bench, and his dozy braindreams collapse as he looks sidelong at the smiling stranger.
“Yes?” Ashdown asks uncertainly. He doesn’t know what the man wants.
“Just checking you were OK,” the man says, taking a seat next to him. Ashdown stares. The man is as pretty as Ganymede. How did that work? He’s never seen such a feminine-looking man before. Maybe it’s a woman. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
He did, actually, but he just looks away grouchily.
-----
“Oh! Sorry, I really thought you were...” The young fellow that Ashdown had named Ganymede in his head was giggling a little and turning bright red. He moves away a little and scratched the back of his head. Ashdown can’t really describe how he feels, but he knows that he just fell off of the bench and onto his arse because Ganymede there tried to put his arm around him. “Sorry... you pipped my gaydar, you know what I mean?”
It’s hopeless. He might as well be talking Martian.
“I literally have no idea what you mean,” Ashdown replies miserably.