The sun was a hazy ball in the sky that filtered golden light from millions of light years away – and hey, that was all right. The water was cool. The breeze was swell. And there was one pleased Senshi of Summer lounging on a raft in the center of the Great Crater Lake of Neso.

It had taken a long time before Neso thought to try using his senshiphone to travel anywhere. The idea of using a cellphone to do it was pretty nifty, but seeing as though he had the nasty habit of losing his most times, it had taken two months before he even got the chance. But a return trip to his heritage of old? Neso could not pass that up, not when he was raised in this life by a woman who believed that the answer to every question in the world actually lied in the past.

Neso, the moon Neso – it was a place etched in pale lines across his memory, almost a figment at times but one that glowed brighter in the presence of his princess and her court. His memories remained patchy, but he could recall what it was like being on his home world, even if that time was brief. At an early age, he was plucked from his world to hang out with Chronos on hers. It was a life that he never resented, never looked back on at all. The moon Neso existed instead as his vacation home, and all of his memories there, faded though they were, were happy.

After twenty minutes of quiet meditation (and another hour trying to force himself to quietly meditate), Neso surged through the cosmos and landed in the old world – his old world. There was much to see, probably, but he didn’t wander far. Instead, the Senshi of Summer pulled up an old floating mat and reclined for the better part of an hour.

Everywhere he looked, Neso saw lush green trees heavy with fruit in every shade of the rainbow. Naked bodies mingled pleasantly, some strolling hand-in-hand down the bamboo-like thatched pathways, others laughing in high trills over a vibrant blue cocktail. A large, flapping banner proclaimed eternal summer and eternal fun, and a woman just below it passed out bright purple flowers to every passerby. The water he floated in was cool and glistening, shining with more clarity than the purest aquamarine gem. Somewhere in the distance, the crisp thrum of steel drums split the silence, and two men danced side-by-side to the rise and swell of the music. The Senshi of Summer reached out a hand to dangle listlessly in the water, stirring tiny jetties.

But where his fingers stirred the cool water in his mind, Neso truly touched parched dirt. Where his eyes fell on the lovely naked patrons of the moon, there were instead husks of dead trees and destroyed hammocks ripped forcibly from their bearings. The rainbow fruit was long gone, having rotted and spoiled ages ago, lifetimes before. The bamboo promenade had been splintered, leaving a wake of jagged edges and sharpened spears. The only truth in his mind’s picture was the warmth beaming down from the celestial bodies above, everything else merely existing in the pleasant patchwork of his unearthed memories. A part of Neso realized the duality, but it was the part of him that never bubbled to the surface.

His eyes were closed, his lips humming along to the steel drums of his memory. What would it serve to remove these rose-colored glasses? The world looked better through them. His world was alive so long as they were glued firmly to his eyes. He needed to focus on the beautiful place that it was, not the desolate wasteland it had become.

So he floated on.