ATTN NIGEL: I've fallen, and I WON'T get up.

[Iason Ouabache]

Welcome to Circle City, the exact center of Nowhere. I mean that literally too. About 150 years ago they realized that they had a large state full of corn and trees and nothing else. They measured north-south, they measure east-west. When they found the center they planted a flag and said, "We build here!" The problem was that there was nothing here. No amazing landmark. Not even a major body of water. They built a monument in the very center to the only war where Americans thought to turn their guns on one another, hoping that it would act as anchor. But you can't even see the monument anymore since it is surrounded by giant bank buildings that have all changed their names three times in the last five years.

People did manage to flock here from afar. People from the ghettos of Chicago. People from the backwoods of Kentucky. People from other parts of the state hoping to grab a piece of the pie. What they didn't realize is that this place is just like all of those tourist traps out there. You see signs along the highway for hundreds of miles telling you how amazing this place is. Then when you get here you realize that it is Nowhere. It's not even a real city. It's an overgrown suburb with no urb in the middle. Ok, not entirely. There's the small downtown area that no one goes to anymore. There's the extremely shitty east side of the city that even the cops won't touch. Other than that it's nothing but urban sprawl. Every block has a strip mall, a gas station, and a church.

They wanted this place to be in the exact center and that is what they got. Everything is exactly average. We've got the company that invented Prozac and if you didn't know any better you would swear that they've been pumping it into the water supply for the last 30 years. People walk around like zombies, not knowing that they are in Nowhere. They brush off the fact that the inner city schools have a graduation rate under 50%. They don't think twice about the government taking kids away from their shitty parents and putting in almost as shitty foster homes where they are lucky if they can make it to 18 and have enough education to count money correctly.  They ignore the rundown motels that dot the outside of the Circle, full of people who would otherwise be homeless. As long as they can watch one grown man throw a ball to another grown man the people don't care.  All of the Important People escaped to the north long ago so they don't have to see what this place has become.

Welcome to Nowhere. Too bad you can never leave.

[Ari]

Welcome to the City of Same - Where everything is the same, always was and always will be.

The same hope, that today things are gonna be different, will you get you out of the same bed you always pass out in. In the mirror you see the same empty face you always carry around. You take the same tram every morning, see the same faces that you never talk to. See the same trees slowly wither from all the same poisons we blow into the same air we blew them into yesterday. You get off at the same station, doing the same things you do every same day. Reading the same newspaper with the same news, drinking your coffee out of the same mug you always do.
The staleness clings to the air and certain days you can actually taste it. Nothing ever changes here.
The same sky is always the same gray, it's always about to rain the same rain, you always just miss that same tram. And you go to the same home to watch the same mindless things to get you off the same thoughts you always have when the same realization finally popped up in the same head you always have:

That this isn't how the world should be.
That this isn't how you were meant to live.
That there must be a way out.

But then you just fall asleep again, in the same position you did the other same day.
And in the morning everything will be the same again.
As it always was, is and will be.

[Template]

I live in the Swamp Where Deals Are Made.

I might write more when I can stand to finish this thread.

I just realized that so many swamps are central cities: open to sea and navigable rivers.  Detail later, too.

[Triple Zero]

You guys should post these, one every day, on the Verwirrung blog. The rest of us will pimp these on twitter and IM. See how much exposure that gets us. Maybe some of them will see that something is very wrong indeed.

[Requia ☣]

You guys should post these, one every day, on the Verwirrung blog. The rest of us will pimp these on twitter and IM. See how much exposure that gets us. Maybe some of them will see that something is very wrong indeed.

This.

[Requia ☣]

Except maybe my stuff about Them.  Which would seem like a derail on the blog (hell it is a derail, but that works better in the moment than somebody reading it later).

[Rumckle]

I've found a place I really love.This city, its people, its vibe, the entire city, is brilliant. I think I could happily live here.

That's what I am feeling now, but it was also what I was feeling 20 months ago, in my old city, and what I once felt in the city I lived in prior to that.

I loved those cities once, but I now realise that it is all temporary. That one day I will wake up despising the people, hating the lack of culture and feeling ill whenever I walk the streets. Happiness is never permanent.

You move to a city, and it is wonderful, you explore all the nice places, the interesting locales, meet cool people. But eventually you will become a part of that city, no longer a tourist, and you realise what lies underneath. The poison, the anger, the frustration, the hatred of the city, and its citizens.

Ironically for me (in my last city), it was around the time I got beat up in a bar, that I got sick of it. The depressing environment drives people to drink, and then they release their frustrations on anyone nearby, fighting the citizens of the city, because they can't fight the city itself.

But now I have moved on to a bigger and more wonderful city. Though this time I fear that the city is too big and too wonderful. It is bigger than any city back home, and when I tire of it, there is little chance of me finding a bigger and better city than this.

And I know, eventually I'll have to stop running, stop breaking connections with people and places, and, somehow, find some kind of contentment. This world is only so big, a finite number of cities in which to lose myself, and eventually my daemons will corner me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I am still and will always be in love with my city, and that is why the truth about it has the power to break my heart.

[Suu]

I lived in the "Renaissance City". A place that was once the breeding ground of degenerates, drug addicts, and the dregs of society until a slightly-greedy mayor came in, pocketed some money, but reinvested the rest into transforming this New England crossroads into a mini-metropolis brimming with art and culture reflecting the diversity of the people who lived there, yet the struggles of the lower classes are not hidden. And never will be as long as the wealthy and corrupt are in power. No matter how "democrat" they claim to be.

It's a battle ground of hyphenated cultural majorities versus hyphenated cultural minorities of both the legal and illegal variety. Italy controls one hill, Portugal: another, Armenia: yet another, and in the middle is everyone standing at or below sea level deciding what type of sausage to buy while drinking their Dunkin' Donut's finest and complaining about the weather, whatever it is, because it's something to complain about.

The rivers were poisoned 200 years ago, and currently boast the shells of fire pylons, ready to make their last sacrifice to the consumer this weekend in the name of breast cancer while I slave away in my little bistro, trying to just get enough money to pay bills at the expense of those drawn to the spectacle and an excuse to wine and dine their significant other. They will complain that we don't have a view of the river, and if they knew, they wouldn't have reserved a table. They will complain that a glass of wine is too expensive, though none of our selection is above $10. And they will complain that they think we added more money to the check than we really did, because they can't read a receipt properly, and then they will figure out that soda isn't free refills and stiff me, even though they drank a bottle of wine and devoured $20 entrees. This is a typical inhabitant.

I live in the Bucket now. Clinging to the freedom of the Commonwealth across the train tracks for lesser sales tax, job opportunities, and stores open past 6pm on a Sunday.

I have to get out of here.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You guys should post these, one every day, on the Verwirrung blog. The rest of us will pimp these on twitter and IM. See how much exposure that gets us. Maybe some of them will see that something is very wrong indeed.

We're doing something different.

Details later, when I have something a little more firm from the interested party.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Horrible Truth Time:  Read all these articles.  We all live in the same city.  The City.  There is only one, so you can't get out.

[BabylonHoruv]

Horrible Truth Time:  Read all these articles.  We all live in the same city.  The City.  There is only one, so you can't get out.

Time to burn it down?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Horrible Truth Time:  Read all these articles.  We all live in the same city.  The City.  There is only one, so you can't get out.

Time to burn it down?

And then you have a burned down city, and winter is coming.

[Requia ☣]

Horrible Truth Time:  Read all these articles.  We all live in the same city.  The City.  There is only one, so you can't get out.

[Template]

Horrible Truth Time:  Read all these articles.  We all live in the same city.  The City.  There is only one, so you can't get out.

Time to burn it down?

And then you have a burned down city, and winter is coming.

Log cabin of frozen corpses.  No mortgage.