It's raining in Wellington, so nobody sees Tawera walk across the face of the sun. I'm three floors up, watching the doorman outside the department store across the road. Twelve people in since they opened a few minutes ago. No other exit. Yesterday there should have been nineteen people still inside when they locked up.
If Ben were here, maybe I'd ask him "under this new sun, will people start to see the ugliness?" but he's not here because the city ate him. Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Ben was a prophet. And if he wasn't a prophet, then he was something else. Whatever he was it was what the city made him.
If Ben were here, maybe I wouldn't have asked him anything. Maybe we both would have just known that things would continue to fall apart and nobody would do much of anything. Ben knew about the ugliness. He'd lie on the street and curse the cars and buses that swerved to avoid him. He was a man, once, and had tried to be a man again but the city whispered to him and told him to come back.
And then it killed him.
I'm three floors up because I don't trust the elevator in my building. There's this pause just before the door opens where it considers dropping me and I have to dart through as it opens to avoid giving it a chance. And when it rains, the tiled streets use the opportunity to secrete an oil, while all the corners get sharper, trying to catch those of us who are less careful.
This city killed Ben but it's not going to get me.
:mittens:
Is this incorporating Maori mythology?
Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 07, 2012, 02:09:07 AM
:mittens:
Is this incorporating Maori mythology?
Somewhat, yes. It's a quick ramble related to a story which incorporates Maori mythology.
I'm really digging this.
I like the shit out of this.
I just saw that the opening had changed. I think it was punchier before.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on June 07, 2012, 08:00:54 AM
I just saw that the opening had changed. I think it was punchier before.
Yeah? I kinda thought so too, but I wanted to put that bit somewhere. It was the start of a second part I started to type up. Will remove it when I write the second bit.
The OP is fantastic. More, please.
Fecking awesome!
Toitū he whenua, whatungarongaro he tangata. This city had a voice before it had these buildings.
It whispered to Ben. Told him "take your waka, your canoe where you will; the whole ocean is there to explore". Told him this while he was driving, with a passenger. Sad story.
We're on the wrong side of the world; the streets flood from the storm drains before the weather hits then the clouds draw the rainwater into space. Or maybe that never happens. Cabin fever. I still can't leave my building because the elevator won't stop at my floor.
I used to talk to Ben about the backwards rain and he'd tell me "he iti tangata e kake ana ki te Rangi". Which I knew to be something about ascending to Heaven, so I assumed he was repeating my observation and pretending to muse on it. Some days he was a prophet, others he was a drunk. And who can blame him, when there are five 24/7 liquor stores on this block but no after-hours pharmacy for miles? When a man who hears the city has a desperate need for peace of mind, for silence, for sleep, the city has made its feelings on how that is to be achieved quite clear.
I'm back at the window looking down at the same buses that refused to take Ben. Every now and then there's a cry and the bus slows only momentarily before purring away again, and nobody seems interested in whether it's another unlucky pedestrian or someone like Ben, who the driver failed to avoid.
The line of passengers-to-be casually nudge the body into the path of a street-sweeper. I record it in my notebook. Everything goes back to normal.
Watching people disappear in traffic gives me hope. Maybe one day the city will let me sleep.
I love this.
This is great! I love the imagery! :mittens:
I saw the wind throw a man in front of a car today. Usually it's calmer, does what the city tells it to do, it's on your back on your way to work and slows your journey home. Every time the city takes someone I wonder "what did they know?"
That's part of why I keep watching. Maybe when I know enough the city will take me too. As it is, I can step right in front of a bus and it'll stop. It'll stop and the people inside don't lurch forward and the driver keeps watching the road and turning the wheel and when I go it'll fly back off again with all its original momentum. I can stand in front of it all day and nobody will say a thing about it, they'll just keep chatting to each other about the teevee and deadlines and producitivity and they'll go about their workdays all night long when I let them go.