Before him was a feast for the eyes.

Curved walls made up the sides of the shopping arcade, coming to an arabesque point. Tiered platforms scaled the arch, opening to individual terraces and pathways that crisscrossed overhead. A functional sun embedded into the ceiling shone UV rays onto the tents and boothes that speckled the ground floor. The open air market was a medley of store fronts. Large shopping centers from a strip mall, small mobile kiosks, steps to underground indie shops, elevators that rose into the single store, precariously supported by only the elevator column.

The shoppers also offered the same rainbow if impossibilities. An array of faces and bodies and creatures and monsters and flights of fantasy. Some tall enough to touch the second floor shops, others so miniscule that they might be trampled underfoot if not careful. One person was bird the size of a human and they moved like one. Another was made of leaves. One was a living flute and another had camera lenses for eyes. There was purple skin, metal hair, greened rotten teeth. An elderly man, naked as a jaybird, had skin the same hue as the grey boy.

The train had deposited the grey boy and Glib atop a barren hill, raised high and above the rest of the Bizarre. He took a moment to soak in the sight, but when his gaze would return to a previous position, it would be occupied with something new to ideas.

He trekked down the hill and attempted to take in details, a thrum of anticipation and excitement running through his veins.

"This is," he said, watching a gigantic cycloptic woman lean against the roof of a pagoda.

"This place," he said, watching an upside down air balloon gently bob on the breeze.

"I love this place!!"

A woman a high ponytail growing out of her head glared at him and said, “Shut up.”

“They’re gonna rob you blind, kid,” Glib said.

"How can you not be excited," the grey boy said. “The ceiling is moving. The sun is smiling. Birds are bartering. I don’t know what that thing is, but it sure is a thing. And I’m pretty sure that tent over there was used to be alive. Pretty sure it's dead.”

The grey boy squinted at it.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Pretty sure."

"They're gonna eat you alive!" Glib said with pep.

"I'll be fine," the grey boy said.

“Would you care for a plate of fish heads!?”

“Would I ever!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The grey boy approached the multicolored tent and the equally colorful merchant within. She held up a silver platter, meticulously dotted with equally sized fish heads. In that moment, the grey boy wanted nothing more. But before he could get within conversational distance, someone blocked his path.

A woman, clad in a tattered robe, her face obscured by the hood. She opened her mouth in a wide smile and smoke billowed out.

“Excuse me,” the grey boy said

He danced to the side. She followed. He moved to the other and she did the same. She opened her mouth, lips moving as if talking, but only more smoke billowed out. It flowed out of the bottom of the robe, from wide sleeves, up and out of the neckline. There was a strong possibility she was simply made of smoke.

“Excuse me,” the grey boy said again, this time with a bit more force. The smoke woman stepped to the side. “Thank you.”

“The nerve of some people, am I right?” he asked Glib.

Glib’s teeth chattered as they looked around, wearing the usual grin. The grey boy approached the merchant and her fish heads.

“Give ‘em a whiff,” she said with all the sensuality of an infomercial model. “Smells good, huh?”

The grey boy tried sniffing for the first time. The telltale stink of salt water and scales was pungent, but it was a strain to identify. Like listening to music in the distance. A song he knew but couldn't quite place his finger on what it was.

Each head stared up at him with open mouthed frowns, their dead glassy eyes focused on the grey boy. The pit in his stomach told him he needed them. Now. Fill that hole with fish heads. Do it.

“Yeah I’ll take ‘em!” he said.

“Alright,” the smiling shop keep said in that sing song late night voice. "What do you got to trade?"

The grey boy stared blankly at the woman. Glib began to slide out his hold and he caught the little purple blob, propping them back into place.

The merchant's smile began to falter. It grew wide enough to reveal a little bit of her red lipstick had smeared on the bottom of her teeth.

“I uh,” the grey boy said. “I don’t have anything.”

“Oh,” the merchant said. She pulled the plate of fish heads away from him, as if he might snatch them.

“I’m sorry,” he said and backed off.

The merchant frowned, huffed, and turned her back to him. The grey boy lifted Glib and held the purple blob close to his face.

“I didn’t know we needed money,” he hissed at his friend. “Shit man, will an identity cost money?”

“Naw, it shouldn’t,” Glib told him. “Well maybe. It's possible. Slight chance. Yeah. Definitely. Its gonna cost something.”

“Great,” the grey boy said. “Do you have money?”

“I have a stomach!”

The grey boy sighed and slid Glib back into the cradle of his arms.

“Not gonna help, but thanks anyways," he said. "It’s still nice here. It kind of reminds me of. . .”

The grey boy inspected the market. Behind him, the hill was gone. Disappeared and replaced with more shops that spread out in every direction, as if it were always that way and would always be.

The sensation of smelling the fish heads came back. An itch somewhere on his skin that he couldn't pinpoint where. It was a knowledge he couldn't dredge up. Not facts or words or the ability to walk and talk, but something he knew he'd known.

There were colors and music and laughter. Lots of people and heat. He could almost feel the blood pumping through his legs as he ran and the smile that hurt his face because he had been smiling too long. He could remember knowing that it wasn’t what he was supposed to do, but he had to do it. Had to run. Had to laugh. Had dance in the colors.

“You okay there slim?” Glib asked.

“Fuck man,” the grey boy said. “I think I almost had a memory.”

“I have a stomach!”

“And that still doesn't help."

Glib wriggled and grinned up at him.

"What you need is an identity Mr No Nose," they said. "Hi! I'm Glib!"

"Yup," the grey boy said. "You sure are."