Fellowship & Fairydust

THIS IS A CITY

By Lucy Rutherford

Word count: 1702

Rating: PG (a bit depressing)

Summary: A description of an advanced but mis-centered city.

This is a city. A humming, vibrant, living city. Twenty thousand warm human bodies populate it, work in it, make it live. Twenty thousand people, each one with his own business to attend to, be that running to school as the dawn breaks gray over the gray of the streets and the orderly buildings laid out on a strict grid, or setting out for the factory where a hundred thousand articles, exactly identical, are turned out in an hour to be sold elsewhere for the increase of wealth. Some of the twenty thousand take the subway, the buses, the trains; some have cars of their own; the rest walk.

Twenty thousand people. And that number is stable: the business of being born, of living, of dying, is carefully regulated, and nobody comes into the city by way of a mother’s labor or leaves it by way of the grave without the serious and philosophical “powers that be” knowing about it. Nearly everyone has housing, and the underemployment rate is in the double digits. Everyone works at something, even if that something is nothing at all.

It is morning and the city already hums with life like a great hive of industrious bees. A student runs along one of the already busy streets, breakfast in one hand, books in the other. Nobody in his right mind is ever tardy and nobody in his right mind attempts to eat breakfast at home before setting out for his daily work. To isolate oneself, even to wish for a moment of silent solitude, is proof of unconscionable selfishness.

The student is not unduly early to the sturdy school, built to withstand the decay of time and bombs, too, no doubt, by the wise and benevolent administration that designed the whole city at some point, probably a decade previous, but neither is he late. It is considered a virtue to be twenty minutes early, but even one who is merely on time is tolerated, while being so much as thirty seconds late is an almost unforgivable sin. There is a mass of students in state-issue uniforms that flatter all forms equally, patriots all, braving the twenty minutes of late December chill before the ringing of the first bell.

The bell rings and the doors open, but nobody rushes in. Nine thousand students at identical schools across the city of identical housing, identical factories, identical streets, stand in identical blocks, twenty wide and twenty deep, ranks so straight you could use them as guides for the fashioning of rulers and levels. Nine thousand young voices rise in proud, patriotic fervor as the flag is raised to the top of countless flagpoles, and ten thousand older voices make the streets ring with precise, measured tones so that only one voice is speaking, and the morning consecration of the city to the ideals of the united country rises above the towers that stand on their own foundations, wasting no time in reaching for clouds, self-assured and self-sustaining.

On to the learning of the day. A morning of local history and philosophical debates, where it is demonstrated countless times that the only wisdom to be found in the world is the wisdom that their country, their city has taken for its own. The rest of the world is bound in slavery and fear, and only the fearless can bring them the truth. It is not enough to be intellectually fearless, however, since some will persist in their superstitious error, depriving their fellow men of the freedom to be united in brotherhood and equality with the rest of the world, and so the students return to the frigid yards where their flags fly proudly in the mid-morning air to drill. The youngest child quickly learns to march without a stumble, and the teachers demonstrate their own patriotism by leading the columns that move in perfect unison, accompanied by patriotic airs around the sacred flagpoles. There is a brief exhortation to the students, encouraging them to always act with flawless patriotism for the good of the country and the world, and then they are dismissed to lunch across the squares.

There is an old church raising its brilliant towers in supplication to a God long forgotten at the other side of one square, and its bells toll the Angelus, but the students have heard them before and it is more important to be fed, to be strong for the country than to stop in the beginnings of a snowstorm for a moment of silence and a few words summarizing a pretty legend. Only those who remember a time before the city, before the hammer came to forge the nation into an unbreakable chain, and the sickle came to bring in the living harvest, really believe in it, anyway. No, this time is for the living, for the warm, red-blooded youth afire with certainty that they and they alone are responsible for the future of their illustrious land, that they will bring their country’s noble dream of freedom and equality to fruition.

As the students eat, their words are still nothing but patriotism; there is no aspect of life that does not fall under that category. The future is rosy but vague: there is no need to worry about a job or a roof over one’s head, or food, or clothing. Anyone who seeks first the good of his country will have his needs met by the all-powerful and benevolent government. There is not a moment of silence either during the meal or after as the students pour out into the streets and return to the schools in a homogenous flood: silence is fertile ground for thoughtful rebellion and regression into the superstitions of a less civilized age, and so it is not encouraged by the wise, peaceable administration.

Arithmetic is directly after lunch and then foreign languages, current events, world history, music, more drills, and yet another exhortation to patriotism. The flag is lowered at the end of the day amid a stirring strain rising from nineteen thousand throats, dedicated entirely to the praise of their endlessly glorious nation.

The academic day is over, but nobody returns to their identical apartments immediately. There are plays, concerts, operas to be attended by the adults, and the youths must go to their patriotic clubs. The children are taken care of by the state until their parents should come to retrieve them, and nobody need be concerned for the safety and wellbeing of anyone else. There is music and there are lights in an endless frenzy of entertainment and patriotism, and nobody hears the mournful tolling of the ancient churches falling into ruin and decay. They don’t match the rest of the city anyhow, and more than one citizen will be glad to see those gilded tabernacles, refuges only for the fearful who know not the wisdom and peace of the society ruled by reason and not by fear or love of the Divine, gone.

As the night ages, one old woman walks out of one of the churches, a bunch of paper posies in her wrinkled hand. A few take the flowers in exchange for a few small coins, but most do not even see her as she makes her way to her apartment where no living soul awaits her return, no loving hand takes her worn shawl, and a candle in a red vase before a faded icon provides the only warmth. There are no parties to disturb the old woman’s rest, no children to demand her attention and sap her strength, no gifts costing effort and time to plan and give, and yet she weeps to be alone, not unwanted but not wanted either, a forgotten piece of a forgotten past, left to fade away unknown.

Outside, there are students returning home from their clubs to complete their homework and then sleep until the night returns to the other side of the world, but even though there is snow falling, their voices still ring in the streets and then in the halls of the apartments – all the same, sturdily built with no pointless flourishes or embellishments, apartments for the equal citizens. The students work without a word, but the night is far from silent as they pore over pages and write even more assignments that project the ringing praise of their nation and subject all other philosophy to Demosthenetic criticism until the very earth seems to cry out in the night. Then, they sleep, and their very dreams are patriotism of the most ardent sort, and there is not a one of them that wakes wondering if there is anything else to dream.

The adults return to the apartments with a few sleepy children in tow, but most of these are still at the care centers already asleep, cared for perpetually by the fatherly administration that will never let any harmful, superstitious, ancient thing come near them. The adults’ heads are filled with the lights and sounds of the night in their city and so none of them hear the bells in the churches announce the hope of another dawn; they hurry through the snow, leaving black footprints through the virgin white without a backward glance, to sleep without a single dream until their day should start again.

In the streets all muffled in snow, one man stands alone outside the church with gilded spires still reaching up, now in jubilation, and in the silence of the now deserted roads he hears singing from within. He stands a moment, his heart stirring as a newborn’s cry reaches his soul, but he turns away and leaves, his footprints dark across the square. There is work to be done on the morrow and no time to chase stardust and legends of angels singing for the birth of a poor child in a stable. All of that is nonsense anyway, and he thinks nothing more of it. He shuts the door to his apartment and with that the city sleeps, ignoring all that passes by, and unaware of the ceasing storm, or the star that flashes across the sky.