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West Tori Park

June 26th X281

Florian prepared to conduct her experiments. She was ready with her list of tests and tasks compiled in her journal.

Each day she planned every experiment carefully to solve all of her questions.

Are these really spirits?

What do these spirit animals do?

What do they mean?

Are they really connected in some way to their owner?

How can I distinguish between real animals and spirit animals?

What happened to the old man and his spirit at the hospital?

Day one. The first test.

Florian grabbed a fist full of rocks and chucked them at the first animal in her sights.

“Florian, stop throwing rocks or else we are going home!” her mother yelled, ending the first test altogether.

Florian moved on to test number two: observe every move the animals make.

She examined her parents’ spirit animals.

Her father had a dog that sat upright most of the time. Whenever Florian upset her father, the dog’s ears would dart back and forth and it would stand on its hind legs as if it were looking for her. Its fur would change color slightly, and its tail would stop wagging whenever he spoke to her mother.

Florian noticed the kids didn’t have animals that could change color. Would her spirit animal look like her father’s spirit animal?

They both had black hair and brown eyes. They both liked pizza and always made her mother worry.

She took notes and drew the spirit animal of her father in her journal.

The spirit animal of Florian’s mother was an iguana with a mane of fur around its neck. The iguana would sometimes even purr whenever Florian’s father was nearby.

Florian stared intensely at the iguana. Florian’s mother stared back. The iguana’s eyes darted back and forth as its tongue wiped its eyes clean. When Florian’s mother talked to other people, the lizard’s mouth would expand and bloat up.

Florian wondered if her spirit animal was anything like her mother’s.

🙠🙢

Day two. Test number three: touch the bat on bat girl’s head.

If I can’t feel it, then it really is a spirit animal.

Florian tailed the bat girl all over the park. When bat girl finally sat down, Florian snuck up on her. The bat was sound asleep, clinging to the top of her head. It was small, but its ears were massive compared to its head.

The frail bat squeaked as if it were yawning. Florian quickly regretted choosing bat girl, thinking the bat was too gross to touch. She grabbed a stick and tried poking it.

The bat girl fled to her parents.

🙠🙢

Day three. Test number four.

“Don’t move, monkey boy,” Florian said.

“Do you even know my real name?”

Florian threw a ball at the monkey standing right beside the boy. With this test, she could figure out if the monkey was real or not. If I throw something at a spirit, it should go right through it.

The boy instinctively moved away from the ball. The monkey followed suit.

“Where were you aiming? That was nowhere near me. You’re not that good at dodgeball, are you?” the monkey boy said.

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“I wasn’t aiming for you,” Florian said.

“Yeah, right, Flori. No one else is playing.”

“I told you not to move.”

“Now it’s my turn.” He picked up the ball.

“Wait. . .” This wasn’t part of my plan.

The monkey boy pushed up his sleeve. The boy’s monkey also wound up its arm. The monkey threw something toward Florian. She ducked, but the object the monkey threw went right through her head. She didn’t feel a thing. The ball smacked her right in the face.

“Are you all right? The ball is soft, so it shouldn’t hurt too much,” monkey boy said.

The monkey had thrown something at Florian right where the ball had hit her. Directly where the monkey boy was aiming. They were connected. Some of their actions mirrored each other. Or rather, the spirit animal did the actions slightly earlier. Florian had never witnessed anything like it or at least never noticed it until that moment.

“What’re you doing? I’m bored.” The monkey boy turned around and walked in the direction of the other kids. However, the monkey spirit animal stayed behind and stared at Florian.

Now it was the opposite. This time the monkey wasn’t copying what the monkey boy was doing. Florian couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“Hey, aren’t you coming?” The monkey boy turned around and waved his hand. The monkey approached Florian, and she got a closer look at it. The monkey was not brown but light tan. Its face was expressive, and it grinned brightly. It looked concerned as it looked up at Florian.

Florian reached her hand out to pet it, but her fingers passed right through it.

“Monkey boy,” Florian called out to him.

“Are you done talking to your imaginary friend?” he asked.

“What’s your name?”

“Are you going to remember it this time, Flori?”

“I’m Florian Lilly Cobblestone. What is your name?”

“For the millionth time, I am Alex. Alexander Rodriguez . . . and I know you are going to forget it.”

“Alex, do you have any pets?” Florian asked.

“I have a hamster at my dad’s house,” Alex said.

“The guy with the elephant with the small ears is your father, right? And your mother is the lady with the octopus hair, right?”

“Okay, now I know you’re making fun of me,” Alex said.

Florian ran off to the other kids. “Bat girl,” Florian called out. “What’s your name?”

“My name? You can still call me Batgirl. I don’t mind.”

“I want to know your real name.”

“Oh, it’s Amalia Simmers.” She smiled.

“Do you have any pets, Amalia?”

“No, I don’t have any,” Amalia said as the bat on her head squeaked.

Florian continued asking for names. She forgot some along the way, but she asked again and again. If she asked them if they had any pets and they said “it’s right here,” the animal was genuine and not a spirit animal.

Everyone has a spirit animal but me. The words echoed in the back of Florian’s mind.

Almost every animal with a person was a spirit animal. A few dogs and squirrels got in the mix, but Florian recognized the grown-ups had strange animals. The adult spirit animals had abnormalities that felt utterly random.

“Alex’s dad? Do you have any pets?”

“Hello, Florian. Are you having fun with my kids? They have soccer practice, so we’ll be leaving soon,” he said.

“Do you have any pets!? Do you have any pets!? Do you have any pets!?”

“What?! I can’t really hear that well. Can you speak up?” The elephant with the small ears. Florian started to get it.

“Florian, stop yelling at people, and stop asking people if they have any pets! It doesn’t matter how many people you ask. We won’t get you any pets if you keep acting this way!” Florian’s mother hollered.

“What’s she doing this time?” Amalia asked.

“Who knows? She always wanders off to do her own thing,” Alex said as they were making some observations of their own.

🙠🙢

Day four. Test number five.

Florian pieced things together using her own terms throughout her journal. Most in crayons and doodles. She concluded these were definitely spirits. The spirit animals were part of the person they accompanied. Their spirit was a physical manifestation of a person’s true self, and their actions could somewhat mirror their owner. To distinguish between real animals and spirit animals, most spirit animals had abnormalities or just straight didn’t belong in a city. In Florian’s eyes, all of the animals and creatures were spirits. But she could ask, “Do you have any pets?” Any answer would identify what was in Florian’s vision.

The last question. What happened to the old man and his spirit at the hospital?

Sometimes the adult spirit animals tended to hide until they interacted with someone, but the kid spirits never disappeared. Grown-ups spirits tended to show themselves when the adults were speaking to someone.

The old man’s soul, the conch crab, didn’t just disappear but cracked and crumbled to pieces. If a person dies . . . then their spirit would also die.

She remembered the slime leaking out of the conch crab and its limbs falling off. So the old man really did die.

Florian noticed a spirit missing a limb was following a man jogging along the waterway. She was worried. The man’s spirit was not an animal. It looked almost human. The creature had long bony limbs. Its skull had a swirling spike pointing straight up. No eyes, mouth, or face, yet it tilted its head upward toward the sky as if looking at the clouds passing by. It made muffled screaming noises as it ran with the jogger.

What animal is it? Is it even an animal? Can spirits take the form of something other than an animal? Like the other adults. Some souls had jumbled limbs or weird changes.

She was scared, yet a far greater fear was consuming her. The spirit was missing a leg and was making painful noises in agony. She was more worried about the jogger. Is the man going to die too?

Florian took a deep breath and approached the jogging man. He turned toward her and made eye contact.

A frail arm took shape from the back of the jogger. As if in a struggle, the arm squirmed and pulled itself against the ground. Clawing at the pavement, the spirit stood up, taller than the six-foot jogger.

It stood straight up facing the sky and let out a muffled scream.