The City Reborn

28Jan2008 [film]

• Immortals
• The City

The City is defeated. The heart is overrun, cancerous, so She appears again on its outskirts.

Walking through the heart of the city, I feel Her absence. The ordinary rhythms are no longer there. There is a martial beat driving the city's occupants; it is forced and dark, corrupting the soul.

But when I leave the centre, away from its dark influence, I think I feel Her again. Out there, just beyond the periphery, a new light is appearing. She is being reborn, and starts to gather Her followers to Herself. I want to be there, to join Her, but I cannot locate Her. I walk the periphery and sense Her presence coming from all directions, except inside, where She once was.

Every week I walk that path again, along the periphery, and feel Her getting stronger. But She is still not located at a single point.

And the darkness at the centre — they feel Her also. They sense Her presence, and fear it. They know their time is short.

They thought they had destroyed Her, but they misunderstood Her nature. The Cities are true Immortals — far beyond their little games and pretensions to immortality. They can still die; the Cities are forever. The Cities have been reborn again and again, throughout human history.

This is now, but I know that it is repeated elsewhere, else-when. All these pieces are part of a tale that is repeated, over and over. For now, I just write down the pieces as they come. Soon, the circle will be complete, and then — I'll have the whole tale, in all its tellings.