Saturn Reserve

“Karma, get your fresh cut karma here! You can’t avoid it and you cannot run away, might as well come and get yours today, rather than making the man come and give it to ya!” A loud robotic voice thundered through the sky and just like everyone else, Marina came out of her apartment to observe Saturn’s not so surprising return. She blew smoke up at the sky and watched the people in the building across from hers. People filed out onto their balconies in floods.hey had been waiting for nearly 15 years since he did his last check in. It had only been a matter of the hour he would appear. She was in the 30 and single commune building 334 apartment CBC (as in celibate but {not by} choice). Some people had already been outside when karma hit. Cyclones of buzzing colorful winds spun around, dancing over the concrete and grass plains of the new found zodiac city. It had seemed like a wonderful idea, until they all realized that karma was so much easier to dish out when 95 Capricorns lived in the building next door to where 98 Scorpios lived. Each person had their own cyclone of woes and karma to deal with. Some were red, some were blue, others were gradients of green and orange, others were literally like the rainbow. Marina couldn’t believe her eyes, she watched the cackling, electric blue lightning turn the brightest green she’d ever seen in her life for the second time. Hazel green eyes flashed in the back of her mind. The sky growled loudly overhead, snatching her attention to the black clad sky that immediately pulled her into it. She was surrounded by darkness that hummed like a million little buzzing insects. The humming vibrated through her body, tiny electromagnetic shocks coursing through her. She was almost certain she’d been struck by lightning, except, she was still somehow awake. But she wasn’t on her balcony, sky gazing anymore. The green lightning resumed, this time much closer to her. “You know, when she touched the roses, she went crazy.” Whispers of disembodied voices filled the air with secrets that she shouldn’t know. “Why won’t they leave me alone?” That was her voice. Somewhere deep inside of the night she was crying. She only vaguely remembered that 15 year old girl; a figment of yesteryear. Memories of childhood bullies and disappointments flurried through the darkness in a fruity smelling purple haze.

Whispers in the air around her sang out; "What did you keep? What did you seek? You reap what you seek."

She barely registered the words and she wouldn't register the words that had been sang into her ear for a few days, if not weeks after.

-A loop of her high school years showed her with her three best friends. She barely recognized her own pimply face and relaxed hair.

Something odd about her was a light; an iridescent light that seemed to change from red and then gold and then greenish blue with each passing moment that she watched herself.

She- as her teenage self moved through the sky, as though she were on the screen of a movie theater. “I could have been a star,” She thought to herself as she watched what she had once assumed to be awkward and timid movements, become graceful, flowing tides of colorful water.

Water that spilled across the galaxy and onto the people around her. People that back then- she had never even noticed watching her. People who took the parts that she went home and cut off in secret- into gold, art, beauty that went on to inspire so many people who didn’t even know her name. That girl that was supposed to her was someone that she certainly couldn’t recognize today. That was someone that she had long ago discarded for someone who people didn’t bother and certainly didn’t not like… or notice much at all. Looking back at herself, she wasn’t as hideous as she’d thought she was either. She was amazed. Shocked really. She wanted to seem more of that girl, but slowly, moment by moment, she disappeared- it seemed. She could see herself shrinking into a dark shadow that made it almost impossible to see the light that had been there just a moment ago. Green light fell from the darkness, filling her with such discomfort, it felt like insanity. Old desires for symbiotic relationships and memories to build and share, a lost hope for children slapped her in her face as the wind gusted around her. Her own voice filled her with shivers of regret. “I want to be alone. That is all I desire.” She said. Several other voices disagreed. They all sounded like her two. “Liar.” The word was like a judgement sentence. A voice she didn’t know, but knew that she would know one day. A man’s voice. “Thief.” A crack of red lightning shot through the green puddles of light that had stayed behind her like an angry bullet. “Stealing from me.” Marina looked up in shock. She hadn’t stolen since she was a teenager and certainly hadn’t stolen from this man. The stars outlined his handsome face; a soft round nose that made it obvious to her that he was some sort of ethnic. The clouds made him seem like he wore an afro. This was her first Sat “I did not steal from anyone.” She exclaimed, outraged. “You’re a liar and a thief.” The man accused again. “Really? Well, what did I take from you?” Marina pushed back. The man hesitated, forcing himself to respond, a dark crimson cloud rising up around him like blood of a bitten tongue; “You lie and you steal from me… if I don’t wanna be alone- neither do you. And if I feel like this… like I was robbed… you stole from me.” Marina didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Black spiraling shadows spun out of the green light. Dark clouds surrounded her. Dark figures swam out of the clouds around her sniffing at her. Rings of bluish green flew around the tornado- protective barrier to keep what was in there in there and what was out here out here. Marina could feel the force of energy that seemed to stabilize the air around her. A sparkling light of reddish-purple shot out of the spectrum and into her chest. Suddenly she was falling. Thoughts of her own cowardice. Thoughts of her own self denial. The green clouds around her shifted and suddenly she was falling. Falling into and through loops and swirls of time and space. She was 16 again. She was laughing, she was smiling, she was trying. She was falling. Falling back down to Earth. White sheets and cotton covers fell over as she tumbled into bed, in such a daze that she wouldn’t remember walking off of her balcony and stripping down When she woke up things were different alright.

She couldn't tell you what she had learned the night before, nor any particular details. Neither could any of the other communities residents.