The Park, Day Seven (Almost)
It turns out that disappearing for almost a week inside a planet-sized theme park is surprisingly easy.
To everyone who sent messages asking whether I had fallen into a volcano, been adopted by pirates, or accidentally become part of a parade...
I was simply on holiday.
A real one.
No mysterious artifacts. No ancient vaults. No people asking me to save civilizations before breakfast.
I remembered, rather suddenly, that I have been alive for an unreasonably long time and have taken embarrassingly few actual vacations.
So when my three-day pass expired, I quietly extended the booking.
Twice.
The Park, to its credit, encourages poor decisions.
I never did join the Noon Parade of Mild Peril.
Instead, I wandered.
The Kingdom Coast became my favorite place to drink morning coffee. The beaches are perfect, the sea is warm, and every sunset politely waits until everyone has finished taking photographs before becoming spectacular.
The Sky Gardens are impossible to describe properly. Entire forests float gently through the air while waterfalls fall upward into clouds. One afternoon I spent nearly four hours reading beneath a tree whose leaves changed color depending on what chapter I was on.
Then there was Steamheart Valley, where trains climb mountains they clearly have no business climbing. The engineers insisted the locomotives are powered equally by mathematics, optimism, and very expensive brass. I chose not to investigate.
The spa deserves special mention.
The mineral pools somehow knew exactly how tired I was.
I emerged feeling approximately forty years younger.
Which, admittedly, is not as impressive as it sounds.
But the place I kept returning to was The Dominion.
Most visitors think it is another attraction.
It isn't.
It is an entire district where, for one afternoon, guests may safely experience what it feels like to possess the abilities usually reserved for gods.
Nothing permanent.
Nothing dangerous.
Just enough.
They handed me a simple silver bracelet and said, "Try not to rewrite causality."
Reasonable advice.
For several wonderful hours I could shape weather with a gesture. Build mountains from empty plains. Lift islands into the sky. Paint sunsets across entire horizons as if they were watercolor on canvas.
I made forests bloom.
I restored extinct birds simply to hear them sing again.
I adjusted gravity over a lake until children laughed while skipping across the surface as though the water had forgotten how deep it was.
The strangest part was not the power.
It was how quickly I stopped wanting to use it.
After a while I found myself sitting quietly on a cliff, watching thousands of ordinary visitors enjoying their ordinary afternoons.
Perhaps that is the greatest luxury of all.
Not changing the world.
Simply allowing it to exist.
Tomorrow I leave.
My suitcase is almost packed, although it now contains three souvenirs that definitely were not inside it yesterday, one towel that politely refuses to become wet, and a small dragon-shaped croissant that insists it is "for emergencies."
Clovis has already informed me that he has "something interesting" waiting.
Those words have never once led to a peaceful week.
So tonight I shall sit on my balcony one last time, finish an excellent cup of coffee, watch the fireworks over a version of Earth built entirely for joy...
...and enjoy the rare feeling of having nowhere to be until tomorrow.
I have a suspicion that will not last long.
