"Ah, that's good..."

Throwing a puff of smoke on the corner of a busy street, a young man giving off a depressing aura was talking to himself.

"Fuck... That didn't go well did it?"

The man was dressed up in a slim fitting suit and tie, standing in front of a towering skyscraper, looking out onto the street as the flow of traffic passed him by. Him being just another suit-armored knight on a heavily populated battlefield ensured he didn’t stand out at all.

"Damnit, I gotta go find somewhere else to work now..."

Sighing, he crushed the cigarette in his hand on a nearby lamppost and called for a taxi to take him back to his shoddy apartment. His day so far hadn’t been progressive in the slightest and so he was already prepared to give up on it and spend the rest of his time working on his dvr recording. It was daunting thing at first but as the days of his unemployment continued he had slowly but surely whittled it down.

When the taxi finally pulled up to his building, he saw a “help wanted” sign for the nearby floral shop. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen their sign, as it had been up for the past week or so, but seeing as he had finally hit bottom on his list of prospective employers he could no longer convince himself against the idea.

Diverting himself from the path to his apartment he entered the floral shop and was immediately hit by a vague earthly scent which he couldn’t quite place. Looking around he saw isles and rows with fully grown plants of all kinds and in the back of the store he could spot what seemed to be an exit to a garden of some kind.

“Hi, Afternoon sir, may I help you?” announced a young girl from behind him, suddenly cutting off his train of thought.

“Oh, I saw the sign outside, you guys are hiring correct?”

Giving him a quick once over she sent him a curious look “Hmm... alright then, just give me a sec ok?” Then darted behind a couple of rows and into the garden in the back. After about a minute or so she came back with another elderly gentleman, who was wearing what could be taken as a stereotypical famer’s outfit. Straw hat denim coveralls and a plaid shirt.

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“Sorry about that, I was tending to the bonsai…”

Huh… aren’t bonsai some kind of Asian thing?

“I’m Arthur, the owner of this shop, you are?”

“Ah, sorry, my name is Jason.”

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Knocking on the door before entering I caught sight of the sage muttering to himself, while I slowly made my way around him to his kitchen.

“This time I didn’t see her, so this situation might continue longer than the others, however, those towers of steel and even carriages that moved without horses… such amazing work. Was it magic or something else I wonder?”

Slightly interrupting the sage, I asked him a question for the first time in a while,

“Who was it that you didn’t see?”

In response the sage turned and slowly leveled his directly to mine before answering.

“Why, shouldn’t the answer be obvious? You…”

Hmm… Like always I just don’t quite understand what he’s saying.

“Ah, I guess so, was this a dream of some kind?” I asked.

“A dream huh? No, rather than a dream it’s more of a prophecy I suppose.”

“Oh, I was already quite flattered being in a dream of the great sage, but a prophecy… I wonder if that’s a good or bad thing?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure yet either.”

Like that I spent another day cooking food for and tending to the young great sage. I wonder who was it that paired us together? I’d really like to knock some sense into that person…