Merina's flower patch

Noon.
Around this time the shopping mall would be teeming with people, those who could find time to leisurely stroll the shops and spend what they wanted were usually in abundance, peppered with those few individuals who were in a rush to get that specific thing, late birthday present perhaps? None of this really mattered, but Oliver Taggart, a young janitor, would see none today, as the mall was closed on short notice due to concerns about the cleanliness of the building, the cleaning firm Oliver worked for was brought in to do the literal dirty work. Oliver was ready, he had abruptly risen from the sweet embrace of sleep only a few hours ago for the shift he had forgotten about, and was understandably still fairly drowsy. Despite his shortcomings however, Oliver began cleaning, with headphones on and rock and blues music blasting from his music player, he was finished faster than any of the other janitors.

He triumphantly slammed his broom against the floor just as the last song finished, safe in the assumption that he was truly a janitorial master. "Yes!" He boomed, basking in the praise of the nonexistent crowd watching him do the only thing he'd ever committed to mastering. Oliver smiled, despite having no one to see him and let out a final sigh of completion. However, he did not feel like it was time to sleep, like the end of most shifts.

In fact he did not feel good at all.

Oliver clutched the broom hard now, like it was the only thing that he could hold on to, because it felt as if the very ground was no longer stable. Oliver let out an unintelligible grumble and looked around confused, but before he could say anything he was gone. To a bystander it would seem as if he had blinked out of existence, no trace. Where he was next was most certainly not where he had been, not the freshly cleaned grey concrete of the mall floor, nor the artificial light of the mall's lamps. These details appeared to be replaced with bare earth beneath Oliver's shoes and a pleasant sunset in the sky, hovering just above the open fields in front of him.

He put his hand in front of his face to block the steadily dimming sunlight from his vision and squinted both because of the light, and due to his sheer confusion as to what had just occurred. "This..." he mumbled, "This isn't New York". Which was the last thing he said before he felt the sudden build up of vomit in his mouth.

A rather aged man whistled merrily as he sat in his horse drawn cart, returning from the bustling markets of Merina with bags of supplies, money, and a few unsold goods that he considered would be good for sale the next day. He idly scanned the fields along the sides of the dirt road, thinking more about the dinner that awaited him, hopefully some nice, delicious stew and his wifes famous golden sannie cobbler- filled with the delicious, apple like fruits that were yellow inside and sweeter than mangoes with so much sweet syrupy juice it simply could not be eaten and enjoyed without milk. His thoughts were briefly interrupted when his eye caught onto the doubled over figure of a young man. He encouraged his horses to go faster, stopping them a few yards away from this stranger, and jumped from his cart, walking towards him. "Ey! You alright there, fellow?" Upon closer examination, he noticed that the strangers clothes was very different, even wearing those strange ear things that passed strange music noises through them somehow. However, that hardly even surprised him, as he was rather used to seeing or hearing about the folks that appeared out of nowhere often in the middle of nowhere, all over the place, but it seemed to happen more often in Cariman. He sighed gruffly. "I hates to pry, but im guessing you came from thatother place called 'earth', right?"