Untitled New Story
The pipes have finally frozen solid. The thin trickle of rust colored water that has faithfully flowed at the turn of a wheel for weeks has halted, mid-course. With the failure of the plumbing, any claim we had to living in a city has vanished in a strangled gurgle. Outside, there is nothing but the cold static of snowfall.
Cities exist in threes: the one we are most familiar with is the city on the Earth, or city as it is. But just as important are the City In the Sky, and the City Underground. The heavenly city sits, atop a vault of clouds suspended in the firmament by thousands of very fine lines, like spider webs. In it, imagines the city on earth, only the rarest of metals are used to work the streets and signposts. The buildings are polished marble, and the entire thing glows with such brightness that none can look upon it. The inhabitants - for what city has no inhabitants? - are, as the structures reflect, the higher manifestations of the Earthly equivalent. Above, there is no jealousy, no pettiness, no avarice or sloth. Inside this city are the highest hopes and dreams of the humans below it, recreating daily what the city could be if only people were perfectable. Ironically, should a person from the City on Earth actually attain a state of grace, or beatification, their heavenly version will vanish, suddenly, like a bubble bursting. This is because the two souls have fused, like sand becoming glass under intense heat. Daily life in the City Above is a regular thing, a constant susurration of prayer flowing over the emerald streets and silver lights with the regularity of a great crystal machine, intricate and measured. And this is what the City on Earth imagines it would become, if only it could.
We thought that walls would make us safe. We thought that walls would make us a city. We told ourselves that to be a city, the fundamental thing was to shut off the wilderness, to reject with stones and mortar the Not-City. Then, having risen the walls high and strong, we set about dividing ourselves with smaller, but equally effective barriers. Decades of having our identities marketed at and pandered to had made us collapse, exhausted, into sub-groups based on criteria such as our favorite brand of soap, or our opinions on semi-colons. As soon as we had exercised our dominion over the Outside, we looked at our hammers, and scaffolding, and set-to with the same will in order to divide ourselves. After all, was this not civilization? We could all be separate, all be equal, and all be safe from each other. Civic planning on how to equitably divide resources, like water, and electricity, and basic services went on for the better part of a decade. As the project progressed, the sky above us grew clearer and thinner, and more stars were visible every night. The great lights that lit broad expanses of plazas and parks dimmed and went out, as the need for greatness decreased. Buildings ceased being built, and became subdivided. A craze in efficient living swept through the design world, and inches became as feet. As the darkness above at night became more transparent, some imagined they saw angels flying high above the city, and this was taken as a sign of favor in our city. For a while, the neighborhoods called to one another, each to each, until the final brick was set in place between them and the city fell silent in the shadow of the walls.
The third city is the City Beneath. In it are dumped all the evictions, the foulness, and the sins of the City on the Earth. It lays miles below the surface, lurking in the drainage of its betters. Its streets are paved with black, viscous liquid, and its buildings decay in the phosphorescent light of fungi. But because it too, is a city, it also has inhabitants. They are stunted and deformed, possessing only the iniquities of the people who dwell far above. If the shining city in the clouds is a golden mirror of humanity, then this city is a warning in a fairy tale, the fly in the ointment. Life goes on in a vicious cycle of betrayal and crime - in every alley there is a freshly murdered corpse, in every home an adulterer with his spiteful mistress. Should a person from the City As It Is become damned or forsaken, his counterpart here will actually double in size, becoming a grotesque abomination with likewise increased appetite and desire. People above imagine that this city does not exist ,and that even if it did, they would certainly have no malevolent twin. While the City On Earth hopes for heavenly glory, at night its tortured dreams are of revenge and lust.
As our experiment drew to a close, it became inevitable that the luxuries and standards we’d had before would cease. First, the wireless sets failed as the neighborhoods turned ever inward on themselves. One could talk, but who would listen? Even the idea of circumventing the walls with radio waves seemed heretical - we were a nation of cultists, proclaiming our ideals as we slowly burned at stakes of our making. Then, in June, the power went out. Generators failed as the supplies of coal and oil dried up, and machinery ground to a halt. Lines began to fall, and transformers went up in sparks. Halloween came and went, barely noticed. What would we dress up as? We’d seen each other’s masks a thousand times already. The city grew darker and darker, and it seemed that we grew thinner and more translucent. Spoken words were heard less and less, and we learned to communicate with a gesture, a delicately raised eyebrow. Water continued to flow, barely, and enough food had been set aside in each area to see us through the coming winter. Some began to question the wisdom of the walls, but it was too late. The snow began to fall, and the roofs were laced with ice. Nothing on the television, silence from the radio. Only the crack of falling limbs and the murmur of the wind.
All three cities must exist, because we can conceive of them. In an infinite world, all things thought of must be true. But which city is more real than the other? None of them, I would say, none of them. If I am telling you of a place, it is because I have been there and seen it with these eyes. Each needs the other to tell it how to be, how to think. If beauty is that which is not ugly, and sin is that which is not virtue, then all three cities are still there, filling each other’s voids and mirroring each other’s souls. It is like an arch in a cathedral. A pure, geometric curve supports the weight of stones and institutions - all of man’s hopes and fears carved into gargoyles and saints, heavy and unreal. Yet, there is no one stone that is more real than the other, in this arch. There is no one stone that holds it all up, that makes the arch support the weight of ages. It is the idea of the line, the relationship between the stones and the concept of an arch, that works. The idea is the reality - the form made function. If there is a lesson to be learned, here, from this city made of walls, it is that one. Learn it, or follow us into the dark.
Cities exist in threes: the one we are most familiar with is the city on the Earth, or city as it is. But just as important are the City In the Sky, and the City Underground. The heavenly city sits, atop a vault of clouds suspended in the firmament by thousands of very fine lines, like spider webs. In it, imagines the city on earth, only the rarest of metals are used to work the streets and signposts. The buildings are polished marble, and the entire thing glows with such brightness that none can look upon it. The inhabitants - for what city has no inhabitants? - are, as the structures reflect, the higher manifestations of the Earthly equivalent. Above, there is no jealousy, no pettiness, no avarice or sloth. Inside this city are the highest hopes and dreams of the humans below it, recreating daily what the city could be if only people were perfectable. Ironically, should a person from the City on Earth actually attain a state of grace, or beatification, their heavenly version will vanish, suddenly, like a bubble bursting. This is because the two souls have fused, like sand becoming glass under intense heat. Daily life in the City Above is a regular thing, a constant susurration of prayer flowing over the emerald streets and silver lights with the regularity of a great crystal machine, intricate and measured. And this is what the City on Earth imagines it would become, if only it could.
We thought that walls would make us safe. We thought that walls would make us a city. We told ourselves that to be a city, the fundamental thing was to shut off the wilderness, to reject with stones and mortar the Not-City. Then, having risen the walls high and strong, we set about dividing ourselves with smaller, but equally effective barriers. Decades of having our identities marketed at and pandered to had made us collapse, exhausted, into sub-groups based on criteria such as our favorite brand of soap, or our opinions on semi-colons. As soon as we had exercised our dominion over the Outside, we looked at our hammers, and scaffolding, and set-to with the same will in order to divide ourselves. After all, was this not civilization? We could all be separate, all be equal, and all be safe from each other. Civic planning on how to equitably divide resources, like water, and electricity, and basic services went on for the better part of a decade. As the project progressed, the sky above us grew clearer and thinner, and more stars were visible every night. The great lights that lit broad expanses of plazas and parks dimmed and went out, as the need for greatness decreased. Buildings ceased being built, and became subdivided. A craze in efficient living swept through the design world, and inches became as feet. As the darkness above at night became more transparent, some imagined they saw angels flying high above the city, and this was taken as a sign of favor in our city. For a while, the neighborhoods called to one another, each to each, until the final brick was set in place between them and the city fell silent in the shadow of the walls.
The third city is the City Beneath. In it are dumped all the evictions, the foulness, and the sins of the City on the Earth. It lays miles below the surface, lurking in the drainage of its betters. Its streets are paved with black, viscous liquid, and its buildings decay in the phosphorescent light of fungi. But because it too, is a city, it also has inhabitants. They are stunted and deformed, possessing only the iniquities of the people who dwell far above. If the shining city in the clouds is a golden mirror of humanity, then this city is a warning in a fairy tale, the fly in the ointment. Life goes on in a vicious cycle of betrayal and crime - in every alley there is a freshly murdered corpse, in every home an adulterer with his spiteful mistress. Should a person from the City As It Is become damned or forsaken, his counterpart here will actually double in size, becoming a grotesque abomination with likewise increased appetite and desire. People above imagine that this city does not exist ,and that even if it did, they would certainly have no malevolent twin. While the City On Earth hopes for heavenly glory, at night its tortured dreams are of revenge and lust.
As our experiment drew to a close, it became inevitable that the luxuries and standards we’d had before would cease. First, the wireless sets failed as the neighborhoods turned ever inward on themselves. One could talk, but who would listen? Even the idea of circumventing the walls with radio waves seemed heretical - we were a nation of cultists, proclaiming our ideals as we slowly burned at stakes of our making. Then, in June, the power went out. Generators failed as the supplies of coal and oil dried up, and machinery ground to a halt. Lines began to fall, and transformers went up in sparks. Halloween came and went, barely noticed. What would we dress up as? We’d seen each other’s masks a thousand times already. The city grew darker and darker, and it seemed that we grew thinner and more translucent. Spoken words were heard less and less, and we learned to communicate with a gesture, a delicately raised eyebrow. Water continued to flow, barely, and enough food had been set aside in each area to see us through the coming winter. Some began to question the wisdom of the walls, but it was too late. The snow began to fall, and the roofs were laced with ice. Nothing on the television, silence from the radio. Only the crack of falling limbs and the murmur of the wind.
All three cities must exist, because we can conceive of them. In an infinite world, all things thought of must be true. But which city is more real than the other? None of them, I would say, none of them. If I am telling you of a place, it is because I have been there and seen it with these eyes. Each needs the other to tell it how to be, how to think. If beauty is that which is not ugly, and sin is that which is not virtue, then all three cities are still there, filling each other’s voids and mirroring each other’s souls. It is like an arch in a cathedral. A pure, geometric curve supports the weight of stones and institutions - all of man’s hopes and fears carved into gargoyles and saints, heavy and unreal. Yet, there is no one stone that is more real than the other, in this arch. There is no one stone that holds it all up, that makes the arch support the weight of ages. It is the idea of the line, the relationship between the stones and the concept of an arch, that works. The idea is the reality - the form made function. If there is a lesson to be learned, here, from this city made of walls, it is that one. Learn it, or follow us into the dark.
