The City

I walked solemnly down a ill lit stretch of road, the asphalt slick with rain. There was a buzzing in the air, the electric hum of a thousand neon lights flickering in the near dark. The city breathed, it was as alive as any man. Feeling the wet air surge upon my skin, warm with the summer air I could think only one thing–this creature of the night had secrets far deeper than any I had ever imagined. Sure, the city was alive, but its streets were dead, never before had I felt so alone. Wafting aromas of stink, gasoline, smoke, the decay of civilization filled my nostrils, sickening me to my soul. I could hear her, the city, between ragged breaths whispers of screams–she raged, afraid, hurt, empty except hatred.

Walking, exploring her vastness, I talked with her. My footsteps became a coded message that only she could hear, why was she so angry? I felt I knew the reason, her muted words came to me in waves–the silences between thunder cracks–she hated us for what we had done to her, what we still do to her. She flourished once, maybe fifty years ago. She was young, she grew, yawning and laughing in the dawn, the heartbeats of a thousand men and women dancing through her veins.

Now, she is bitter, the grey buildings like a cancer eating at her, keeping those heartbeats from touching her. She grew cold, isolated, uncared for and forgotten and she began to rot–yet hanging onto the rasping life dreaming of the yesteryear. She cared for us, gave us places to play, things to do she gave us our hopes and dreams and all she asked for in return was our love. Her lack of understanding permeates me as I try to explain to her what happened, she still doesn’t understand why we chose to become corpses clogging her, choking her.

She’s been trying for years to make us love her again–we ignore her cries; her desperate attempts to con us from our fortresses. She gave up some time ago, instead she wants only to die. I plead with her not to go, that we still need her even if we’re too shallow to see it. I know her plan, I’ve known my entire life–invading our dreams, poisoning us with a sickness that cannot go away. Distilling the hatred and isolation she feels into our veins as we have into hers. I can feel it, so can you if you just stopped and let yourself. The rage, the city is tearing itself apart, forcing us to flee. Crime surges, business fails, jobs vanish, prices soar, she strangles us as only she knows how. She and every one before her, and every after her, where we could once go and start anew, now she and her sisters blight the land and tear each other apart, seeking only the solace of death.

And the day is coming, the day that she falls apart, her decaying flesh falling upon itself and what will we do then? I ask her and she doesn’t care. It’s too late, nothing to do but wait. In defeat I slink back to my fortress, listening as she bays at me, pleads for me to kill her, because I was the only to care to listen to her story. I cannot, I am not a murderer, at least not yet. Sure as the sun began to rise I knew that one day I would become an instrument of her destruction and she would thank me as only she could–silence.

–RK