The Orange Curtain

By rainxface

Prologue:

Hidden.

That’s who I am and where I was. No one to find me, no one to know me. No one to want me. If I stayed in the shadows, I was safe.

I relaxed in my tree. The moon was blocked by misting clouds, their thickness too great over the reflective satellite. I brushed a silver hair out of my eye and began to hum.

I don’t know what I was humming – a church hymn, an old song, or something I had created. Humming always calmed me. Even as a young child my soft voice of a hum cleared my temper, finished the tears, or shooed away my butterflies. This night I need to be clear of anxiety.

A cool breeze blew in my face. It tickled my cheeks and danced with my hair. The leaves clattered together as a natural wind chime. A few nocturnes took their turn rummaging below on the fake Earth ground.

I huffed, stopping the tune.

Little kids smiling, parents watching tentatively as their child moved through the playground. Dogs and their owners happily walk down the street and wave to their neighbors. Distant birds were chirping.

Blazing police sirens went off in the streets, away from my tree. And they tell us to keep down the noise, I thought bitterly.

I tried to regain my old memory, but lost it as the whee-ews continued. Day by day, our town was getting worse.

I stared up at the sky – or what was supposed to be the sky. Fake stars twinkled, but the clouds blocking my view were – at least to my knowledge – real. The moon I used to gaze at as a child was not the same; that old moon at least acted like the revolving crater-ball with its rotations. This moon was always full. Nor did the stars move. They were stationary above our heads.

The day sun was none the different. It rose and sank on time everyday, no exceptions. No sunspot activity to heat-wave us, cold-wave us. Though, it did possess a monthly weather rotation.

I yawned, pulling my arms behind my head. I closed my eyes, but there was no way I was falling asleep now – sleep was only gained when in an abandoned building. Instead, my thoughts roamed again, their imagination working it’s hardest to make the old memories alive.