Excerpt from "the Unfortunate" by Alonna Kilpatrick

Iris
   The locals graciously took you in without much questioning. They were apparently accustomed to running across lost foreigners that needed shelter and couldn't speak very much english. You hadn't asked anyone for a place to stay after your unexpected arrival so you ended up sleeping in an alley that was decorated with words and always filled with singing of some sort or another.
   Eventually, you found yourself the proud owner of a small house that the locals referred to as a 'flat'. It was a single room that was made up of a bed, a shower, a sink, and a small ceramic bowl that was connected to the floor by pipes that carried running water. You simply assumed it was a toilet. The room always had a peculiar scent lofting around. It almost smelled as if someone had set a handful of roses on fire and was hanging the mess from the ceiling. But there was nothing there but mold.
   You typically bought your food from a kind older woman that went by the name of Vondra and sold decent meat pies and sticky balls of rice. You earned just enough to make a living by assisting the town's cloth weaver, Mordecai.  You kept track of his string and tobacco products and carried around a list of all of his recent orders from your fellow citizens. One night, you were stuck working late in his hut and by that time he had consumed more alcohol than necessary. He wandered away from his work and ended up 'talking' to you instead. He tried to convince you to sleep with him and you used your limited vocabulary to politely decline and say that you would see him the next day.
   On the rare occasion that you accumulated some free time, you would walk through the surrounding sewers and climb up into the dense forests that enveloped and concealed the entrance to your new home. You had started a garden there. You bordered the occupied soil with thorny rose bushes  to prevent and pesky animals or curious people from stealing your blossoms. You harvested strawberries and lemons from your meager paradise, but you mostly used the oasis to plant flowers of all colors and scents. You used to bring a pen and a pad of parchment to your garden and draw the fantastic blooming spectacles and the walls of your flat were covered in the elegant sketches.