Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
🍪 — 017. dreams, outfits and giants.
ISA DREAMED OF A STORE.On the outside it looked like every other convenience store Isa saw around New York when Chiron let her visit Vivi. She walked up to it, reading the hand-painted sign over the door: RAINBOW ORGANIC FOODS &LIFESTYLES.
"Oh, you got to be joking." she muttered, but pushed the door opened.
As she stepped through the door, lights came on. Flute music started up like she'd walked onto a stage. The wide aisles were lined with bins of nuts and dried fruit, baskets of apples, and clothing racks with tie-dyed shirts and gauzy Tinker Bell–type dresses. The ceiling was covered in wind chimes. Along the walls, glass cases displayed crystal balls, geodes, macramé dream catchers, and a bunch of other strange stuff. Incense must have been burning somewhere. It smelled like a bouquet of flowers was on fire.
Isa walked through the empty store, stopping here and there to look around. She knew where she was and who was the owner of the shop, but she didn't really want to meet them right now.
She walked through the produce aisle, between rows of eggplants, kiwis, lotus fruit, and pomegranates and finally arrived at the back of the store, where, behind a counter with an old-fashioned cash register, stood a middle-aged woman with olive skin, long black hair, rimless glasses, and a T-shirt that read: The Goddess Is Alive! She wore amber necklaces and turquoise rings. She smelled like rose petals.
"Mother."
"Darling!" she walked from behind the counter, which was lined with dozens of little statues —waving Chinese cats, meditating Buddhas, Saint Francis bobble heads, and novelty dippy drinking birds with top hats, and came to hug the girl, "So glad you're here."
"What is happening? How are you in my dream? Isn't Olympus closed?"
"Oh, it's closed off, but I don't really like to follow Zeus' orders, now do I." Iris said, unwrapping her hands from around Isa, "Would you like something? Maybe these chocolate cakes? They are gluten-free, no-sugar-added, vitamin-enriched, soy-free, goat-milk-and seaweed-based cupcake simulations."
"Um. . . maybe some other time."
"Right, right," Iris said, "You were freefalling. Blacked out. And now you're here. Just in case, you're only dreaming, my dear. If anyone wonders, I wasn't here. M'kay?"
"Okay. . ." the girl cleared her throat, "So, why are you in my dream."
"Oh, to talk of course! Come here." she led her daughter to a café table at a bay window. "I really don't like what Hera is doing, but she took a very big risk ─ an exchange. I do agree it had to be done, but it's still too early. Zeus has kept two sides divided for so long, but you need each other to accomplish the task that is ahead of you."
