The Absurd Reclamation of Concrete Dreams

“You’d think for all the tax dollars,” Sasha started, kicking a scattering of burnt-orange maple leaves that had plastered themselves to the pavement, “they could at least make the ‘Orbs of Perpetual Cheer’ not emit a low, gut-wrenching hum.” He glanced up at the nearest sphere, a nauseating purple pulsing above a recycling bin that overflowed with takeaway cups. His nose crinkled, a habit Miko found both endearing and utterly aggravating.

Miko zipped her frayed denim jacket higher, the chill seeping into her bones despite the autumn colours trying their best to brighten the city. “Maybe it’s meant to be motivational, Sash. Like, ‘get off your couch or the hum will drive you mad!’” She nudged Leo, who was staring intently at the Orb, his brow furrowed in earnest contemplation.

Leo finally blinked, his gaze unfocusing from the pulsating light. “It smells like… ozone and disappointment. And I think it just got brighter. Did you see that? A flicker.” He gestured with a mittened hand, a faint streak of purple residual light seeming to follow his movement. He always saw things like that, things the rest of them missed, or chose to ignore.

“Disappointment is right,” Sasha muttered, running a hand through his perpetually messy brown hair, the colour of dried mud. “And speaking of disappointments, have either of you heard anything new about the Duke?”

Miko sighed, a puff of visible breath escaping into the cool air. The 'Duke of Tuxedo Park' – a truly hideous mosaic of Mayor Millard’s prize-winning miniature poodle, crafted entirely from reclaimed bottle caps and discarded plastic toys – had vanished three days ago. Its disappearance had become a local scandal, plastered across community news boards, even making the evening news, framed as a grand civic tragedy.

“Last I heard,” Miko offered, “the city’s offering a reward. Fifty dollars and a lifetime supply of… recycled paper products. Apparently, it’s a matter of ‘civic pride and environmental stewardship.’ Never mind that the Duke was literally glued together with carcinogenic industrial adhesive.”

“And looked like it had been run over by a lawnmower, then resurrected by a taxidermist with a vendetta against dogs,” Sasha added, his lips twitching into a wry smile. “But still. A loss. A gaping, bottle-cap-shaped hole in the heart of Tuxedo Park.” He leaned against a lamp post, the metal cold and pitted beneath his elbow. His breath hitched for a moment, a sudden involuntary shiver.

“It’s not just the Duke,” Leo said quietly, his gaze sweeping over the drab brick façades, the peeling paint on shop windows, the occasional splash of vibrant graffiti that looked like an act of defiance. “It’s like… things are just… dissolving. The old record shop on Main closed last week. The community garden got paved over for ‘essential infrastructure upgrades’ — which turned out to be more parking. And now the Duke, a monument to… well, whatever it was a monument to.”

Miko understood. It wasn't about the ugly dog mosaic. It was about the slow, incremental erosion of their city’s strange, messy character. The Orbs were just another layer of manufactured 'betterment' over genuine, lived-in grit.

“So, what are we going to do about it?” Leo asked, turning to face them, his eyes wide and earnest. His parka, too big for him, made him look like a hopeful, slightly lost owl. He fidgeted with the drawstring, pulling it taut, then letting it snap back.

Sasha scoffed lightly. “Do? We mourn the Duke, Miko sketches a more aesthetically pleasing replacement – maybe a giant squirrel, something with actual local relevance – and then we go get poutine.”

“No, really,” Leo insisted, ignoring the poutine. “We should… investigate. The city’s obviously useless. They probably just hired a committee to ‘strategize the recovery plan,’ which means they’ll hold a press conference, blame ‘unforeseen circumstances,’ and then commission an even uglier, more expensive piece of art to replace it. We could find it. The Duke. Or at least find out what happened.”

Miko looked at Sasha, then back at Leo. He was right. There was an absurdity to it all, a civic play acted out with increasingly bizarre props. And the idea of being more effective than the city’s ‘strategists’ was, in itself, a deliciously subversive thought. Plus, she was bored. Her last art project, a series of charcoal sketches of abandoned shopping carts, felt utterly uninspired.

“Alright, Sherlock,” Miko said, a grin slowly spreading across her face. “Where do we start? The Mayor’s mansion? I hear he has a fondness for… tax-deductible topiary.”

Sasha groaned good-naturedly. “No, no. Let’s think like criminals. Or, more accurately, like someone desperate for fifty bucks and a mountain of recycled paper. Who hated the Duke enough to move it? Or loved it enough to… relocate it?” He kicked another clump of leaves, the sound muffled by the distant hum of the Orb.

“Someone with a van,” Leo offered, eyes gleaming. “And maybe a forklift. The Duke was heavy.”

“Or,” Miko interjected, a flicker of an idea sparking, “someone who needed a *lot* of bottle caps and plastic for their own… project. What about that abandoned community centre on Northwood? The one the city declared a ‘zone of self-reflection and civic rejuvenation’ last month?”

Northwood Community Centre. It had been closed for years, a relic of better times. Recently, the city had announced its 're-purposing' – which meant they’d installed about twenty 'Optimism Orbs' inside, turning the place into a glowing, droning monument to bureaucratic optimism, completely devoid of actual people.

The air grew thick with the sickly-sweet scent of ozone as they approached the Northwood Centre. The wind, now colder, whipped fallen leaves into frantic eddies around their ankles, a chaotic dance against the building’s stained, boarded-up windows. Through a gap in the plywood, Miko could see the interior awash in an intense, pulsating violet, like a giant, cancerous bruise.

“So, this is the epicentre of civic rejuvenation,” Sasha deadpanned, peering through a grimy windowpane. “Looks like the apocalypse on a budget. I half expect to see a single, lonely bureaucrat meditating on a yoga mat made of recycled tires.”

Leo pushed open a creaking side door that had obviously been forced before. “The hum is louder here,” he whispered, his voice hushed by the sheer, overwhelming presence of the Orbs. He squinted, then added, “And it feels… sticky. Like the air is a bit… viscous.”

Inside, the main hall was a forest of glowing Orbs. They hovered at varying heights, some almost brushing the peeling ceiling, others bobbing gently just above the scuffed linoleum floor. The air throbbed with a deeper, more insistent drone, vibrating in their chest cavities. It really *did* feel thick, almost like moving through syrup. The violet light cast eerie, shifting shadows across the dusty walls, illuminating forgotten bulletin boards still advertising events from a decade past: 'Bingo Night - Every Tuesday!' 'Youth Dance - Featuring DJ Sticky Fingers!'

“Okay,” Miko said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the bizarre silence. “This is… something. Definitely a candidate for ‘place where you’d hide an embarrassing dog mosaic.’” She noticed something else, then. Thin, almost invisible wires snaking from some of the Orbs, disappearing into makeshift junction boxes taped to the walls. Crude, but functional.

“What’s all this?” Leo murmured, tracing a wire with his gloved finger. “It looks like… they’re being drained.”

A sudden clatter from deeper within the building made them all jump. A muffled voice, followed by a curse. They exchanged glances. This wasn't empty. It wasn't a meditation zone, either.

They crept forward, the pulsating light guiding them down a narrow corridor. The air grew warmer, almost oppressive. They reached a large room, formerly a gymnasium, now completely transformed. Black tarpaulins covered the windows. A chaotic array of electronics – old sound mixers, projectors, speakers – was wired up to a central hub, which in turn was connected to dozens of the Optimism Orbs, now stripped of their ethereal glow, looking like deflated purple balloons.

And there, silhouetted against a wall pulsing with a homemade light show of riotous, dizzying colours, were five figures. Teenagers, younger than them, frantically fiddling with wires and dials. They looked up, startled, as Miko, Sasha, and Leo entered.

“Whoa, chill!” one of them, a lean kid with bright green hair and an ancient band t-shirt, yelled, dropping a spanner with a clang. “This place is, like, private. City property. For… civic rejuvenation.” He grinned, a flash of metal showing on his teeth. He gestured vaguely at the lifeless Orbs.

“Yeah, we’re familiar with the city’s current definition of ‘civic rejuvenation,’” Sasha replied, stepping forward, his hands in his pockets. “We’re wondering if your… rejuvenating activities… have anything to do with a certain missing canine-themed mosaic?”

The green-haired kid, Zeke, sized them up. “The Duke? Nah, man. We just… borrow the Orbs’ juice. It’s way cheaper than electricity for our stuff.” He gestured proudly at the light show, a dazzling, chaotic symphony of stolen purple light.

“So you’re… siphoning optimism?” Leo asked, a slight frown on his face, trying to process the concept. He noticed a patch on Zeke’s jacket – a crudely drawn dog with X’s for eyes.

“Something like that,” Zeke shrugged. “They put 'em everywhere, right? Like free energy. And it makes for wicked visuals. Way better than just… meditating.”

Miko scanned the room, ignoring the blaring, distorted techno music now pulsing through the rigged speakers. No Duke. But something else caught her eye. Propped against a far wall, almost hidden behind a stack of deflated yoga balls, was a large, oddly shaped canvas. Or rather, a collection of canvases, carefully joined together.

She walked towards it, her boots scraping on the dusty floor. As she got closer, the colours resolved themselves. Bottle caps. Plastic toys. Glazed ceramic shards. It was the Duke. Or parts of it. Reconfigured. Reimagined. The garish poodle head was still there, but it was now merely a detail, a small, grotesque star in a much larger, more bizarre constellation. The body, instead of a canine form, was… something else. Something abstract, yet distinctly avian. A massive, almost obscene pigeon, wings outstretched, holding a tiny, perfect top hat in its beak.

“You found my magnum opus,” a voice said, low and resonant, from the shadows beside the reconfigured mosaic. A figure emerged, tall and slender, with striking, mismatched eyes – one a pale, cloudy grey, the other a sharp, intelligent brown. They wore paint-splattered overalls and a defiant smirk. “I’m Cinder.”

“You… you did this?” Sasha asked, a genuine note of bewilderment in his voice for the first time. He’d seen a lot of weird things in Winnipeg, but this took the biscuit. A pigeon with a top hat. Made from a poodle.

Cinder nodded, circling their new creation with an air of profound satisfaction. “The Duke was an insult. A corporate-sponsored monstrosity, a monument to artistic cowardice. It was a lie. This,” Cinder gestured expansively at the pigeon, “is truth. The truth of urban decay, repurposed absurdity, and the indomitable spirit of the city’s actual winged residents.”

Leo peered closely at the mosaic. “But… it’s a pigeon. With a hat. And it’s made from… the Duke.”

“Precisely,” Cinder replied, their mismatched eyes sparkling with manic intensity. “A redemption, wouldn't you say? Taking something truly awful, a symbol of everything wrong with our civic aesthetics, and transforming it into something… profoundly meaningless, yet utterly authentic. It’s a satire of a satire, darling. The ultimate artistic commentary on our collective inability to discern genuine beauty from committee-approved kitsch.”

Miko felt a strange surge of understanding. The absurdity wasn't just in the art; it was in the expectation, in the city’s desperate attempts to manage happiness and cultural output. Cinder had cut through the noise, albeit with a mosaic pigeon. It was messy, imperfect, and profoundly human. Her thoughts drifted to her own uninspired charcoal sketches, how she’d been trying to capture something ‘meaningful’ when the true meaning lay in the grotesque, the everyday, the slightly off-kilter reality.

“So, you stole it,” Sasha clarified, ever pragmatic. “And then… rebuilt it. Here. With the help of the Orb-siphoners?” He gestured towards Zeke and his crew, who were now engrossed in a debate about the optimal frequency for a strobe effect.

“Stole is such a strong word,” Cinder countered, waving a dismissive hand. “Reclaimed. Liberated. Upcycled. I saw its potential, its latent, unexpressed absurdity. The city saw a lost dog; I saw a canvas for a feathered monarch.”

Miko grinned, a genuine, unforced smile. “A feathered monarch. I like that.” She looked at Cinder, then at the mosaic, then back at Leo and Sasha, who still looked utterly baffled. “It’s brilliant. Truly. A kind of… counter-monument. A reminder that art doesn't have to be pretty to be true.”

“It still looks like it was run over by a lawnmower, then resurrected by a taxidermist with a vendetta against birds,” Sasha grumbled, but a faint, almost imperceptible smile played on his lips. He was starting to get it, too. Or at least appreciate the sheer audacity of it all.

“So, what now?” Leo asked, still a little lost in the philosophical weeds of avian taxidermy and civic satire. “Do we… report it? Or help you… unveil it?” He looked from Cinder to Miko, then at the pulsing, garish mosaic.

“Unveiling,” Miko declared, a spark in her eyes. “Definitely an unveiling. But not for the city. For us. For anyone who understands what it truly means to lose something ugly, only to find something… wonderfully, profoundly, gloriously absurd.”

Cinder’s pale grey eye gleamed. “A private viewing of public folly. I like the sound of that.”

As they stood there, contemplating their next move, the air in the gymnasium began to shift. The remaining, untouched Optimism Orbs, which had been gently humming in the corners, suddenly began to pulse with a new, frantic intensity. The violet light deepened, then shifted, almost imperceptibly, to a sickly green. A low, resonant frequency, much deeper than the usual drone, began to vibrate through the concrete floor, rising, rising, until it felt like their teeth were rattling in their skulls. Zeke’s rig, which had been siphoning energy, suddenly sputtered, sparks flying from the junction boxes. One of the Orbs in the ceiling, the light now an unnerving, pulsating chartreuse, began to emit a high-pitched, almost human-like shriek. The entire room started to shimmer, as if the very fabric of reality was being stretched thin, warped by an overdose of manufactured joy. They exchanged wide-eyed glances, realising this was far beyond mere artistic reclamation.

The shriek escalated, piercing their eardrums, as the chartreuse Orb pulsed with an alarming, almost violent rhythm. The shimmering intensified, and the floor beneath their feet seemed to ripple, distorting the reflections of the vibrant, absurd pigeon mosaic. What had begun as a bizarre artistic statement was quickly devolving into something far more chaotic, and Miko felt a primal fear knot in her stomach, a fear that whispered: the Orbs weren't just for optimism; they were *doing* something.