the pipe

VR-MLN-3 was full of artifacts that suggested it was meant to be a beautiful place. The exorbitantly ornate street lamps, for example, which when you looked at them now didn’t entirely match the state of disrepair seen on much of the street.

One such artifact was a single long, square pipe that ran above the doorways of every door in the commercial district. It was unsightly, and most residents never knew its original purpose. One might have thought it was a gas or water pipe except that it was full of large, evenly spaced holes. The pipe ran all the way from one end of the strip to the other, just a big ugly piece of metal with no obvious purpose.

But at Cybil’s diner it was different. From each hole in the pipe a plant protruded. It was a long charcoal vine that wrapped around the pipe in a spiral. It had many flower buds which were just beginning to open, their reddish-orange petals just beginning to show. A small pump cycled water between the section of pipe and a bucket on the floor beside the door.