Visions
By: Vicente L Ruiz
Tags: Writing Prompts, Wording Wednesdays, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Story

“Coney Island Dreams” by Subway Doodle. Used without permission, will remove if requested.

I walk in a mist. It always starts like that. I remember it frightened me when I was a small girl, no matter what Grandmother said. Now the fog tendrils caress me like a lover would.

And then, as always, the world coalesces.

Only it’s not the world I know.

Everything is grey. It looks like that time I was in York, but even so… it’s so weird. I see no green at all, and there are no animals. Wait, yes, I see a man with a dog. But it’s strange, he has his dogs on… a leash? Why would you do that?

I quickly forget about it, as a carriage approaches. What an amazing sight! I see no horses, and I only know it is a carriage of some sort because it has wheels. And oh how fast it comes, and I’ve barely seen it past when another comes and goes, and then another, and then another. And the noise! They roar past, creating a commotion I have never felt before, as they roll on their strange grey-coloured path. There are even more carriages stopped at the other side of the path, but I see no people on or around them. I find that as strange as everything else.

It is then I realize the painted wall beyond the carriages. It looks like the murals of a church, only the images there have nothing to do with the ones one can see at churches. Some of them even make me blush. Me.

And then, then… If I thought the carriages roared, I lack a word for what came next, since there was a terrible screech above, and when I looked up in the sky, I saw a giant bird that approached on a cloud of smoke. A dragon! And here people always said dragons didn’t exist! But I’m watching one fly past with my own eyes!

My sight drifts beyond, and I marvel again at the wonders of this world, as I see people boarding strange contraptions. Large towers made of metal with hanging boats that turn and turn, and rise up in the air. Others where similar vessels move on a wooden path and climb along, then fall, then make turns and twists. Those people aboard scream and laugh. Others stand in stalls and throw darts at marvelous balls that explode with a bang when the dart touches them.

And oh the smells! There are so many, and I can barely recognize any of them! Are those onions? The aromas fill my nostrils and I feel the pang of hunger, even though I know it’s an illusion.

It is then that I walk by a mirror, and I stop. What is this?

The reflection I see is small, and furry, and wags a tail. It has large black eyes and two tiny, pointy horns on top of its head.

And it’s blue.

Blue? What does that mean?

I feel the familiar pull, and I see the white light, and I leave the vision behind as I’m sent back.

I grab my table as if I was going to fall, even though I’m safely sat on my stool. I’m glad to feel the familiar board, the knots in the wood I know so well. I hear a haggard breath, and it takes me a few seconds to realize it belongs to me.

I open my eyes.

My customer stares at me, expectant.

I shake the cobwebs in my mind, and tell him what he wants to hear.

“Your passage to the Americas will be safe,” I say. “You can embark with no worries.”

He thanks me, and leaves my tent with a smile on his lips.