To the truck
“Are you OK?” she asked. “You look lost.”
Shit. I probably am lost. Just act cool. “Um, sorry. I just wandered into the woods behind me and got a little disorientated.”
She smiled at him. “Oh, that’s alright. Are you looking for the entrance?”
That might help. “Yeah. Do you know where it is from here?”
Without taking her hands off the book, she unfurled her left wing out at him. The feathers were a deep black like a raven’s. She pointed with the feather on its tip. “Just follow that path there. Or, if you can fly, just go over the trees and you’ll see the parking lot behind the old church. That’s where the entrance is.”
That raised more questions than it answered. A parking lot? So, there are cars? ‘If’ I can fly? So not everyone can? Jared doubted that he could, so he decided to walk. “Thank you, miss. You… have a nice day.”
She retracted her wing and nodded amiably. “You too.”
Jared made a slow trot towards the path she had pointed to. It wound around the stretch of woods he had come out of which he noticed contained species of trees different than what he’d encountered in the tigertaur world. A shit ton has changed. Am I in the same city as the old worlds? He came around the other side of the woods and saw the parking lot in the distance with a large, cast-iron fence surrounding it. Arcing over the entrance was the name of the park in all capitol letters: BATTERY PARK. Jared sighed with relief. OK, so it is the same city. He blinked the gate out of focus and noticed how far away it was. It was at least two hundred yards away. The sign over the entrance shouldn’t have been readable at that distance, and yet he deciphered it perfectly. I guess that makes sense. Birds of prey have really good eyesight. It also explained how he was able to see people flying onto the balconies and walk inside from an even greater distance. He wondered how much he could see on the ground if he was flying, and if he’d ever get the chance to find out.
More sphinxes passed by him as he continued his walk down the pathway. There were people holding hands, chatting and laughing. A mother rolled her baby around in a stroller, though it was one of those pet types with a flat bottom like he’d seen in the human universe. The baby was peeking over the rim, holding on with its chubby baby hands, its cat half splayed out on the bottom. He saw Jared walking past, then smiled at him. Jared just smiled back, thinking the baby was part adorable, part bizarre. He made it to the parking lot where normal looking cars filled the spaces. Someone walked past him towards their car. Jared watched the man go, noticing the twinge and jerk of the muscles in his lion half. That contrasted with his human section which was much rounder and softer with a loose, white T-shirt draped over his shoulders. He didn’t notice Jared watching him by the time he made it to his truck. He opened the door which stretched the whole length of the cabin. There weren’t any front seats inside, nothing but flat floor space for the man to climb inside. He started the truck normally, then drove out of the parking lot.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 06 June 2024
