World Turner: Episode 1 - Sundown Part 1

Lou Wilson (0:05)

This is the sound of Worlds Beyond Number.

Good morning, Yakobor! Clint Roy here at the Yakobor Broadcasting Network headquarters, coming to you on the morning of the summer sundown. If you're stepping outside, yes, that's Bloom on your coat, and your hat, and your hat. And your breakfast, if you left it too close to the window. The year keeper is putting on quite a show. Tonight, take your sweetie on down to the Bayview Bandshell for Tony Jelone and the Yakobor Brass Society. And if you can't make it in person, our latest and greatest recording equipment will capture every note, right here, on ABN. Provided we can keep the Bloom out of the works. Until then, keep brushing, Yakobor. It won't help, but it gives your hands something to do.

Morning settles softly over Port Akobor.

By the Bayview Bandshell, big white banners are erected, announcing that today is the summer sundown, a celebration of Port Akobor's best season. When the energy of the city is peak, when joy pours out onto the streets, the city celebrates with fireworks and music.

Fairies cross the harbor beneath a pale summer haze. Trolley bells carry between the buildings, and white strands of the bloom from Yearkeeper drift across rooftops and gardens.

West of the university, the noise of the city gradually softens into an area, a neighborhood known as Twin Bay. Here, the buildings stand a little further apart than in the old quarter. Narrow apartment houses and old faculty homes find streets shaded by trees. Window boxes lean toward the sun. Somewhere nearby, coffee is brewing, a radio plays through an open window, and someone is already arguing with a delivery driver in the street below. Between the two bays, the air smells of salt water and warm stone, and breakfast being cooked in neighboring kitchens. But on the third floor of a narrow brick apartment building, one window has been left open to catch the breeze. White bloom filaments having collected along the sill. Inside the rooms are small. The furniture doesn't quite match, and evidence of several different lives has begun to gather in this same space. This is the apartment of Yaxle and Harley. Where do we find Yaxle this morning?

Ally Beardsley (3:15)

Yaxle is holding like a brass coffee pot, pouring himself like another little cup. And he's got the paper open and a couple of magazines. He's just got like a little sampler of all these different readings that he's doing.

Lou Wilson (3:35)

You've got a copy of today's Akeborialis with big pictures of Tony Jelone and the Akebor Brass Society arm in arm smiling, talking about how excited they are for tonight's celebration, how they've been preparing for this for weeks, and they've got a whole new tune that they know is going to knock everyone's socks off. And then also the Daily Akebor and some other kind of more local, maybe even university centric papers that you're going through as you enjoy your coffee this morning.

Erika Ishii (4:08)

Harley is on the pullout couch in the living room, having passed out there the night before, and I still have a couple of empty bottles of beer around me, and I'm sleeping in a very loud manner. You know, it's just the snoring and the sort of talking in the sleep, the restless slumber of somebody who is trying to sleep off the night before.

Lou Wilson (4:47)

Definitely. I think, Harley, you've been told in the past that you sleep like your father, who is like a six-foot tall, like bearded foreman in the city's refineries. Even though you are of like a smaller frame, I think you bring like that kind of energy.

Erika Ishii (5:04)

I am still my father's daughter and oh boy.

Lou Wilson (5:08)

Could you describe your appearances for us? Just what your characters look like?

Ally Beardsley (5:13)

I am a pretty tall, pretty like strong guy. I keep my hair pretty neat. I don't have any facial hair. I can't really grow it. Almost always wearing a button up shirt, sometimes a jacket. It's just kind of the wardrobe I have, unless I'm in like a jersey specifically for playing Glideball. In the next room, like in the bathroom, I hear some soft kind of like big band music playing. And I recently, I've been up for a while. I took a full bubble bath already this morning. So I'm dried off, but just in that way, that's like so freshly clean starting your day.

And I've squeezed fresh juice and I'm getting back to the table with like a little juice glass, a little coffee, all my stuff. I'm reading an article about how they use a two foot branch whittled down to make the reed for playing in a very like specific instrument that they'll be using tonight. And I cannot wait to relay this factoid to any girl that's interested.