velvet curtains, iron heart
The floor to ceiling velvet curtains in the suite seemed very luxurious at first, until I noticed the grease stains. Who was in this room before me and what happened here? Did they have one of their freak-offs in here? What am I smelling? A friend was calling down for room service or checking in with our local contact— rotary phones, that's interesting. What timeline is this? They wanted to know which direction our television was pointed to make sure we got the best reception. North? Idfk. Why does it matter? If we were here, I guess we were supposed to be gathering for the Big Event and would be watching the broadcast from our rooms if we weren't at the party itself or on the lists for the after-parties.
It felt like we were in Italy, but I thought Italy was reclaimed by the sea after Campi Flegrei. The cobbled streets didn't have blood running through them at this moment, but in the shift from under the bridge to now, I did have to navigate a melee. I could feel the earth breathing while people were throwing grenades back and forth— flashbangs, the teargas capturable beneath cones like our friends taught us. Sometimes a grenade would open up a massive chasm in the street. The blast was significant enough to impact the creatures who dwell deep below our pavements.
The heart of the earth is made of iron and many amazing beings live in deeper realms of the earth and sea (as below, so above in and beyond our own galaxy) that aren't yet known to those who stay living without curiosity on the surface. They're just minding their own business, they don't care what people do, but every now and then we pull some shit like this constant warfare that's been going on up here for more than four hundred years and they get pissed off about it. How would you feel with upstairs neighbors moving furniture and partying too loudly, walking around in loud shoes all the time? Universal bylaws state that everyone should be able to live here with reasonable expectation of quiet enjoyment. The plates of the earth are shifting, the earth is expanding. When the earth really begins to rupture, (rapture?) we might finally have to contend with some neighbor complaints.