Time for Pruning (Dr. Cosmos)

Light poured across the dew laden tops of the blossoms adorning a tightly woven trestle along the back wall of a crowded greenery. Eight stakes lined the back wall with an assortment of flowers bundled through small holes drilled to keep the arrangement in place. Brilliant blues intertwined with resplendent reds aside luscious lavenders dotting the columns in a sequential pattern. Pride blossomed from each carefully placed and pruned petal, crisp with the touch of experience.

As the sun dragged itself through the polluted sky, a lone woman tended to store. While the hustle of the city drove the lifeblood of the city back into their cozy lives, Yolanda remained in her sanctum. For years she tried all she could to amount to something within the world of others only to come to lose their gaze and find her own life. To tend her own love.

The Helijet had dropped him off once again, dipping down over an empty and dead construction lot. He slipped from the stairs and waved a hand at the cockpit, sending it back to the private airstrip to wait. The address and information was minimal at best, very little in background of the subject or of their preferred lifestyle. Ignatius pondered how it would be to intrude on a carefully arranged life, someone's attempt to carve out an Eden. The street was quiet for the afternoon and green enough; trees and grass patches were built into the sidewalk, whiled down at the end of the precession of stores and homes great elms shaded the asphalt. The store that he wanted had a small front, but a rather wordy sign above it. Flowers ran along the bottom lip of the words, which declared that it was the home to, "Inner Peace Arrangements."

Despite the urgency clement found himself smiling slightly; fate was certainly odd in it's little intricateness. Inner Peace, what he would give for that at this moment. He vainly examined the collar of his grey steel jumpsuit, adjusting it as he carelessly crossed the street. The paint was fresh on the woodwork around the glass and when he opened it and slipped into the bright fragrant shop Clement understood that whatever life this person had chosen as their own, it was beloved.

The place made him feel old for some terrible reason, the fresh new life so young and vibrant but so quick to age like him. Steel grey eyes, deader now then they had been ever before, dead as the cold surface of the moon lowered as he closed the door behind him and carefully moved towards the counter. He paused as he realized just how ridiculous this man must appear, in a full grey jumpsuit that matched his eyes and temples. Clements eyes finally lifted from the wooden surface and he began with a charismatic, or at least a stab at charismatic smile.

"Good Afternoon, Ma'am. My name is Ignatius Clement and I believe you can help me today."

While not entirely out of place, Clement brought a very distinct aura to the flower shop. Yolanda tried to think of what this guy came for. Anniversary? Sometimes people come her for funeral and spouses die, so never assume that. Graduation? The time seemed right, but not the day. Office? Seems more like a secretaries job. The jumpsuit threw her off, but his smile gave him an air of importance beyond a janitor or blue collar worker. "What can I help you with?" She placed a red tulip as she caught his smile. It reminded her of the past; it reminded her of what she used to be.

As she placed the tulip along a fixture it took a dominant capstone over the triangular placement of the purple and yellow blooms beneath it. "You seem more like a man who would show up in a suit." Her hands fluffed the petals a little to give it more girth. "I always like men who are as comfortable in a flower shop as they are in an office." Of course she knew the down side to that. The cheating business man who came back from the airport after a debauchery of a business trip and now needed some flowers to return with. They all brought winning smiles too. Some men have too much for their own good.

The smile on his face finally reached the eyes, which glinted with a hint of amusement as she easily replied. He found her eyes investigating him a little closer then her words would express, trying to quantify him in her own little way. He supposed until he opened his mouth and ruined the illusion that today was like any other today, she would continue to thoughtfully consider him like a piece of a puzzle. Somewhere in the open and flagrant shop, a metal arm automatically fished a record from a collection and placed it on a player, which began to turn and pressed a needle against the LP. The sound of a trumpet being blown echoed through stems and off the green walls, accompanied by the piano as it slowly built to Louis Armstrong's voice. Inner Peace was certainly being arranged with the song along, which made those eyes soften even more.

Finally, Ignatius carefully selected his words. "Surrounded by fresh flowers and greenery? Flower shops are simply far more comfortable then any office I've been in." He quirked an eyebrow and offered that same smile again. "However I'm sadly not here for the plant life, Ma'am. When I said I need your help, I meant only you..." In the background of their little quiet spot of the world, the trumpets had picked up slightly, their brass sound drifting below his words. What he said next was quiet and carefully constructed, but was not arrogantly patronizing. He spoke honestly but sympathetically, like a doctor would to a patient. "From what I understand you were diagnosed with a disorder some time ago. Schizophrenia. I am lead to believe that your case is a unique rarity amongst many overs diagnosed with the same disorder, Ma'am."

He paused here and sighed slightly, shoulders dropping as he lifted a glove forefinger and thumb to pinch at the bridge of his nose. Clement was tired. Very tired. "I'm sorry, I most sound and appear to be very strange." He dropped his hand and placed his hand on the counter, head dipping slightly in as respectfully a nod as he could, trying to convey some sense of the urgency he felt. "Could we perhaps talk about this in a more private place? It is very important that you understand just exactly what you could do to help save the world."

Once he began his end of the conversation her assumptions of him possessing the traits of deception needed to cheat on a significant spouse. With his words cutting directly to the bulk of the matter she moved along the row of assorted bouquets and turned the sign displayed on the door to signify the end of business for the day. "I wouldn't call it that." Coming back around to the record she gently moved the needle off. "It's been a few years since I've been to a psychologist, and even then..." The abruptness of the conversation didn't leave her at a loss for words, as much as the means for how she viewed herself towards this world. "Follow me."

Flats full of flowers lined the backroom under the protection of the lights pouring their ever so needed nutrients upon them. She kept her business set up within the confines of the stockaded flowers to surround her computer and ledgers with the aroma of life, even enough for multiple lives.

Up a flight of black, grate stairs laid a small efficiency apartment adorned with small canvas paintings form local artist she sold flowers. Resting just over her bed, on the pale white shelves she made from crates into fashionably decorative housing upholstery, sat two photos of a young Hispanic man in his mid twenties with a passing resemblance to Yolanda. Light cascaded a glare off of his face, blinding he view from different directions, but keeping his face ever the same.

In between the soft colors of jazz musicians and the San Francisco Bay stood the collected memories of Yolanda against the near wall. During her time in therapy she met a photographer named Landry who cut her a good deal on the photos aligning her walls. "So it's been a few years since I talked to doctors, but I don't think they would agree with what they said back then now." She pulled out a chair from a tiny table and motioned for Clement to take a seat. Keeping the conversation moving, but not knowing how to steer it, she took a seat upon the pressed green comforter on her bed. "Aside from the troubles of my, well troubles, what..." Whether or not she knew what Clement needed confused her, so she decided to relinquish the rights of the conversation back to him. "What is it that you need?"

Clement turned and watched as she moved passed the careful arrangements, stepped to the doors and turned the Open card to Closed. He stayed by the counter, hand safely on the surface as he watched her moved into the shadow of a climbing vine, carefully silencing the song. She was gently talking, but he believed it wasn't for his benefit. Instead she was ordering and arranging her thoughts verbally, very much like how she had moved and arranged the flowers in the vases on the counter by him. He supposed she was trying to understand his words too, which was a promising thing; it meant she was seriously taking his words to heart. When she directed him to follow he did not hesitate, moving between the pots and following the young lady into a bright backroom; here growth had even taken a root between the important paperwork and computer. When she scaled black grate stairs he paused to take a quick glance about, before he began to climb too. The sound of metal below his shoes reminded him of the train station he once called home, what felt so long ago.

The small apartment made him smile, drawing out of his memory as he stepped into someone elses. The paints and the bright colors fitted well with the life spread out among the shop below; however these things were the pressed remains of people now no longer there. A chair was pulled from a table and offered him, which he more then easily slipped into. One leg crossed the other and his hands closed over a knee, another professional little pose that was simply encoded into his DNA as she sank onto her bed. He had remained silent as she continued to address and remember herself, before finally Yolanda had addressed him once more.

"I believe an explanation is in order." He paused and lifted his hands, palms upward. He offered his right hand forward slightly and began a small explanation of Quantum Reality. "This is our universe. Our world, orbiting a star, which orbits the galactic center of the Milky Way, whom in turn is guided by ever larger forces on a wider and wider scale." He held up his other hand and turned grey eyes to the palm. "But it is not the only universe. There may be others out there, comparable to each other as a Daisy is to an Orchid. One could lack the complexity of gravity or time while the other could have forces we would never understand. And then there are others like our own." He supposed this would be a good analogy, so he leant forward in his chair and bowed his head slightly.

"Our universe is a Rose. It has grown in a bank of other Roses, each very much like it. However they are each individual." He tried to gage her reaction for a moment, before finally cutting to it. "You are a unique individual, because your mind has somehow worked out a way to see more then the reality around us. You can observe the other worlds, with other people like our own. It is this ability that I need to make... use of, if you would allow me."