The Bowl of Petunias, As It Fell

This came to me between dreams.

It was, on the one hand, quite easy to simply forget you lived in a flying city. Sure, the clouds were quite close, but that just meant the rain didn’t hit quite as hard as it would with more metres to travel. And yes, where a dirt city¹As so many derisively called them. might have the occasional body of water running through it, you had a body of air, but to bird was not meaningfully that different from to fish.

To be a citizen of the City of the Golden King²Having been renamed this after the death of the Golden King’s predecessor, the Flying King, who was named that for his uncanny magical ability to make cities fly. meant, for the most part, walking to the store like anyone else, riding your bike to work like anyone else, filing formal complaints with the Department of the Cave like anyone else.³Funerals, bathrooms, and other ways matter was disposed of worked differently, for reasons you can imagine. Life in the City of the Golden King was normal, easy, and pleasant. It was, the people thought, good.

So, when the other hand came and took away those illusions, the City of the Golden King was actually not first to learn the new cosmic truth that, while they weren’t paying attention, the age of magic had come to a sudden and abrupt end. But it was certainly amongst the first to know quite how hard this new cosmic truth could land.⁴If landing is what you wanted to call it.

When the flying city fell, it was the birds who noticed first.

• 1
  As so many derisively called them.
• 2
  Having been renamed this after the death of the Golden King’s predecessor, the Flying King, who was named that for his uncanny magical ability to make cities fly.
• 3
  Funerals, bathrooms, and other ways matter was disposed of worked differently, for reasons you can imagine.
• 4
  If landing is what you wanted to call it.