Around the Corner

I turned onto Bistaine Boulevard during one of my required walks through the city. Whenever I talked with Christine that way, I had to just walk away and cool down. It always helped me forget how despicable I could be sometimes.

Turning onto Bistaine, I noticed that the sky darkened considerably. I looked up to see cloudy shapes in the sky fighting over who got to block out the sun. I looked back down towards the end of the boulevard and didn’t see any of the usual sites that helped ease my anger streak. Where Dave’s Florist Shoppe sat was a burned out husk of a business. Instead of Pets by Sally, a crumbling building.

I was stunned. The entirety of it all resembled war zone pictures that I saw in textbooks or on the occasional news broadcast that Christine didn’t insist on changing. “I want to watch my Bad Girls!” she’d whine in those moments. I’d relent, of course, but compared to this veritable hell that I had discovered, I’d prefer the Bad Girls too.

I looked back to where I’d come from and was greeted with more confusion than anything: a stained brick wall was there. Some white powders had been smeared over sections of it and bloodstained feathers sat at the base. I was nothing short of stunned.

Where was I? I had no idea, nor did I know how I had gotten there.

Something like an answer came about when I heard movement up the street. I didn’t know whether I should hide or run towards the noise and ask for help. Since the area was a complete mystery, I decided that hiding was the best option.

I was certainly glad I had because what came around the corner was quite a scene: four penguins dressed in militarized garb! I didn’t know what to make of it. Then they started talking to each other, fanning out to search the area. I was relieved to see them go the other way. But I was even more astonished by what happened next.

A trio of gingerbread men leaped out of a second story window! They were hurling large chocolate balls of some kind and shouting commands at the penguins. “Die!” was the most common one but I noted that others were among the sounds that filled the air.

The penguins immediately sought cover, losing one of their own in the process. Chocolate landed on its head and started coating the bird, drowning it where it stood. It flailed about, suffocating, and I stared in amazement as the evenly matched trios stood their ground and hurled explosives at each other.

The small battle distracted me so much that I was caught off guard when a small hummingbird zipped in and demanded that I identity myself, my affiliation, where I was from and where I was going. I didn’t know what to say so I asked the bird where Bistaine Boulevard had gone. The bird laughed lightly, almost menacingly and my heartbeat doubled.

“This is Blimey-Shyte,” said the hummingbird. “You’ve been dropped into the war between the Birds and the Breads. Any boulevards that were here are long gone, human.”

“Where are the other humans?”

“The Breads ate ‘em after they obtained sentience, the doughy flackers. How’d you survive?”

I explained to the hummingbird how I had turned the corner and literally stumbled into the area. The hummingbird said that I had most likely walked through a wormhole that the Birds had experimented with decades ago in hopes that they could harness the power provided by such anomalies and destroy the Breads once and for all. It was quite a lot of information to take in and I started feeling dizzy and wished to be back home with Christine and her benevolent Bad Girls.

The hummingbird seemed to understand and he zipped away. I refocused my attention on the battle before me and saw that one more penguin had fallen but only one gingerbread man remained. I couldn’t see the corpses of the other two but realized that if a pastry is exploded, there’s little more than just flour and powder left behind.

Looking behind myself again, I saw the powdered stains on the grimy brick wall and shuddered. The hummingbird zipped in again and said that there might be a way for me to get back home, if I was willing to brave the battles. I said I would. The penguins were astonished to discover me and the gingerbread man escaped into the darkness of an alley.

I asked the penguins and hummingbird how I might find a wormhole back home and they said they’d lead me to their director’s office and, with any luck, a functioning wormhole.

As we walked, I saw many more strange and horrible sites: seagulls pecking at stray pieces of cake, donuts strangling crows, pelicans dropping éclairs from on high, and a great bald eagle stabbed through the heart with a baget.

The Birds protected me from various forms of Bread that tried to eat me and I knew terror when I saw a gingerbread man as big as myself be taken down by a flock of finches. But not without casualties.

The Birds explained that we were near the director’s office when I heard an explosion behind me. I hit the ground and looked behind to see an enormous wedding cake throwing its weight around the street and destroying everything it touched. I started to cry and the Birds told me to man up and run for cover. I did just that, bolting for the alley as a line of tiny gingerbread men had strung a line between us and the office.

In the alley, I tripped over a box and, when I got up, there were no cries. I turned around and saw a normal, busy street just outside. I can only assume I had hit another wormhole but I’m glad I escape the battles between the Birds and the Breads.

Word Count: 999