The City-State

Do you know what a city-state is? It's the state of being a city. All cities must be in a city-state, otherwise what are they?

The city was in pain. I could feel the color of it- red and dull and pulsing. It smelled salty and raw, like an open wound. The wind screamed down the alleyways and the buildings moaned.

 

An abandoned city is always a terrible thing to see. The once majestic buildings are decrepit and in a state of decay, the once gleaming windows grimy and missing in places- only to be found on the ground, shattered. But the most terrible thing to see is a city that was abandoned for no reason.

 

When asked, the former citizens always offered excuses- it was a bad neighborhood, it was too close to tornado country, there was too much risk of an earthquake, the buildings weren’t well made, etc.- but any excuses they gave were either untrue, or hardly reason enough to abandon their jobs and homes. Hell, even the homeless left, even though there were hundreds of buildings now open for them to make into comfortable homes. It didn’t make sense.

 

When anyone that had lived outside of the city was asked what had happened, they reply that there must have been some sort of disaster and the city had to have been evacuated. Their tales varied, but none of them were true, either.

 

 

“Do you know what a city-state is?”

 

“Of course, it’s a self-governed city. The ancient Greeks-”

 

“No, no. A city-state is the state of being a city. All cities must be in a city-state, otherwise what are they?”

 

 

I was curious to find out why a once populous, bustling metropolis had suddenly become a ghost town, and had interviewed hundreds of its former citizens. But they all gave me those contradictory, and oftentimes false, reasons, and hadn’t even seemed to hear any kind of evidence to the contrary. A fascinating phenomenon. My rather fanciful assistants delighted in coming up with all kinds of theories- brain-washing, the distribution of a mass hallucinogenic, a secret government project that genetically altered the plants there to give off some sort of freaky pollen. I really needed to give my assistants more work.

 

 

“Not a city?”

 

“Very good. So if a city suddenly falls out of its city-state, why, no one would want to live there anymore.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You said it yourself, it would no longer be a city. How can you live in a city that isn’t a city?”

 

 

Well, I’m not exactly being truthful when I say that all of the former citizens I interviewed gave me those excuses. There had been one old man that had given me an entirely different account.

 

He had been a professor in the city’s university. This guy had been a triple PhD- industrial psychology, architecture, and classical literature. A strange combination, but you had to respect a guy with that kind of dedication. He was now living in a retirement home, suspected to be in the early stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. I didn’t expect to get much out of him, but he was on the list of people I wanted to interview so I decided to go ahead with it.

 

I hadn’t expected much, and what I had gotten was crazy- downright certifiable. But, to be completely honest, it was the only thing I’d gotten that I couldn’t disprove.

 

 

“So you’re saying that everyone left because the city came out of its city-state?”

 

“Exactly. And that’s why you’re getting such contradictory accounts. Their minds won’t accept the fact that the city just suddenly ceased being a city, so it filled in some more reasonable excuses.”

 

“So what is it now? That it isn’t a city anymore, I mean.”

 

 

I had to admit that in some crazy- and I stress crazy- way, the old man’s reasoning made a strange sort of sense. But I certainly couldn’t publish it, or even allow myself to believe in it. At least, not without better proof than the ramblings of an old man.

 

I decided to go straight to the source of the phenomenon- the city itself. After listening to the old man, I felt foolishly like some sort of movie action hero- the intellectual that stumbles upon an ancient mystery and has to save the world. Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Non-City. I should sell the rights to Spielberg.

 

 

“That’s just the question my boy! We have an unprecedented phenomenon on our hands. This may be the first time in history something like this has happened. The city is in flux, in the middle of a metamorphosis. You must go and see what it becomes!”

 

“Why me?”

 

“Because you didn’t accept the ‘reasonable’ answers. You questioned it. You can understand it.”

 

“Why don’t you go?”

 

 

I certainly packed as though I was headed out into the unknown. Tent, sleeping bag, flashlights, lanterns, a little kerosene stove, some non-perishable foodstuff, a compass, a radio, a Swiss Army knife and some duct tape. I guess I was MacGyver instead of Indiana Jones.

 

But the truth was, I didn’t know what was left in the city, or what shape it was in. I didn’t know if I would be able to take my car (a little compact- great on gas, but terrible on any sort of rough terrain) down the streets, whether or not they were still usable, or if they were covered in debris. I didn’t know if the buildings were safe enough to stay in, or they had fallen so far into a state of decay that the floors would crumble under my feet. Granted, it had only been fifteen or twenty years that the city had been completely abandoned, but if it turned out that there had been some sort of disaster, everything might have decayed much more quickly. I didn’t want to take any chances

 

 

“I? I am jailed here, imprisoned, chained to this place like a convict. But even if I were not, I am too old, too weak. I have not the strength to deal with the dangers that will be found there.”

 

“Dangers?”

 

“Do you not remember the pain of puberty, of growth, of change? It will be in pain, and like a wounded animal, it may lash out. But you are young and strong and agile. You will be fine.”

 

 

Of course, I wasn’t going just because of the old man’s story. I couldn’t believe that it was the real reason behind the phenomenon of the city- indeed, what rational adult could? But the mystery of the abandoned city remained unsolved, and I could never leave a fascinating puzzle alone. It was a terrible character flaw. If this was a Greek tragedy, it would most certainly cause my downfall.

 

I sincerely hoped that the Mystery of the Non-City wasn’t a Greek tragedy.

 

I shook my head. In spite of myself, I was letting the old man’s story get to me. The dangers of a non-city in the middle of a metamorphosis, and all that jazz. Or was it an adolescent city throwing a temper tantrum? It was going through puberty, after all. I smiled at my own wit. Certainly, thinking of it this way calmed my nerves some as I drove down the empty highway. It was eerie, being on this big road all by myself, in my little compact car. It made sense of course- the last exit was the city, and no one ever went there anymore. There had been talk of expanding the highway, connecting it to the nearest one and rebuilding the city, or at least reusing the area. But those plans had been buried under bureaucratic red-tape.

 

Or had they used that as an excuse to forget about it?

 

Stop it, I scolded myself fiercely. A city is a city is a city. There is no such thing as a city-state- or if you want to get philosophical, only the inhabitants of the city can confer or take away the city-state. A city cannot just fall out of its city-state and run its inhabitants out. It isn’t possible.

 

There was a reason that I never watched horror movies. They always stayed with me. For at least a week afterwards, I would be surreptitiously checking the back of my car or going down to my basement to look around, always claiming that I heard water running, or some other weak excuse. My mind had a tendency to latch onto things (which was, in fact, the reason I had started investigating the city phenomenon) and never let go, worrying at them like a dog with his favorite chew toy. That’s exactly what I was doing with the old man’s story, and I knew that if I didn’t find any proof to the contrary, I would always wonder if it was true.

 

That’s why, when I got there, it was so easy to see the city as being in pain. It was late and the sun was setting, casting everything in a blood-red pallor. My own blood was pounding in my ears and my adrenaline was pumping. I was so prepared for… something to happen when I got there, that my fight or flight response immediately kicked in and my senses felt heightened. The wind in the alleyways seemed overly loud and the smell of it felt so wrong. Of course, there was nothing actually wrong with the city that I could see, other than the expected crumbled stones and shattered windows- and there were far less of those than I was used to seeing in abandoned buildings. And no graffiti- other than what had already been there, faded and peeling- which was, I think the biggest shock. I had expected at least a couple of tags here and there. I’d have thought that the city was the perfect place to practice, with no law and no building owners. But I guess even daredevil graffiti artists stayed away from this place. That thought unsettled me.

 

Since the buildings still seemed viable, I decided to search for someplace to set up home base. I drove until I found one of the newer apartment buildings and parked in front of it. It had probably been a rather swanky place in the city’s prime, with huge apartments that probably had cost more than I made in a year. But the more expensive buildings tended to get better maintenance, and would be less likely to fall down around my ears.

 

I decided to use the first apartment I came to, which had probably been the super’s. It was locked, but I had expected that, and took out a screwdriver to remove the doorknob. But what I hadn’t expected was what I found when I opened the door.

 

The apartment wasn’t cleaned out. There were books on the shelves, a TV in the living room, soap in the bathroom. Most of the clothes were missing from the closet, but other than that, the apartment was fully stocked. And it wasn’t in disarray, as you would expect if the city had been evacuated. In fact, other than the thick layer of dust and grime coating everything, it was rather neat and tidy. It was as though the tenant had just left for vacation and never came back.

 

Out of habit, I flicked the light switch and was startled when the light came on. There was still electricity in this building despite bills not being paid in close to twenty years. What was that Douglas Adams quote about the electricity being turned off when he did pay, so it was no surprise that is was still on when he didn’t pay? Guess he was right.

 

I searched the kitchen. Everything perishable was, of course, either long gone or unrecognizable after all this time, but I was pleased to find plenty of non-perishables and a better variety than what I had brought with me. And since the stove looked electric, it was probably still in working order. I wouldn’t have chanced it if it was gas. Who knew what state the gas lines were in? I flicked the emergency shut-off switch for the gas. Last thing I needed was a leak blowing up the building.

 

My next mission was to find the super’s office. If his apartment was any indication, people hadn’t left here in a hurry. I was hoping to find move-out forms, letters asking for a reference, forwarding addresses, anything that might explain why they left. What I found were a stack of expired lease agreements and some rent reminders. Nothing to indicate that all the tenants had moved out. I went through the leases and took down names, but it was half-hearted at best and I’m sure that I spelled more than a few names wrong. There was nothing here, not an evacuation notice, not notes from the tenants asking to pick up mail or water plants. Nothing.

 

As I wiped down the stove and prepared to make myself dinner, I resolved to find city hall in the morning. People had trickled out of here, that much I was sure of. There had been no mass migration or evacuation. Somebody had to have noticed that people were slowly disappearing, and I was hoping that that somebody had reported it. If I was going to find a record of what had happened anywhere, it was going to be in city hall. And if it wasn’t there-

 

I’m not going to think like that, I thought stubbornly, stabbing at my food. Something had to be in city hall. Either the reason behind all this or a clue to lead me to the reason. After all, that was supposed to be the hub of the city, the center of it all, the beating heart-

 

Oh, I’m not gonna think like that either, I thought, suddenly feeling sick. The old man’s story was still fresh in my mind, and I could suddenly see city hall beating and pulsing like a heart. With a sigh, I settled down in my sleeping bag (the bed was far too grimy to even consider using), all too certain that I was going to have nightmares of a living city with a beating heart.

 

But when I did dream, it was of nothing like that.

 

I was still in the city, and everything was exactly the same as when I had gone to sleep, except it was different, somehow. More organic, more geometric. Organically geometric. Or maybe geometrically organic. I couldn’t tell.

 

I wandered the streets, searching, searching. I didn’t know what I was searching for, but it was important. I had to find it. I had to-

 

City hall was right in front of me, and it was red, and it was pulsing, but I wasn’t frightened. Instead, seeing it gave me an inexplicable sense of peace. I sat in front of it for either a moment or an eternity, lost in the serenity it gave me. But then I noticed a blurry figure, watching me. It was vaguely human shaped, but small, like a child. Young, I thought distantly. It was a boy. It was a girl. It was both.

 

“Are you lost?” I asked, wanting to help the child. “Are you hurt?”

 

“Areyoulostareyouhurt” it parroted, or maybe it was the sound of cars rushing by.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Areyoualright?” it said, still slurring the words together, but slower this time, and with a little more distinction, as though it were puzzling them out. Or maybe it was a jackhammer in the distance.

 

“Can I help you?” I half expected it to continue with its trend and repeat my words back.

 

Instead, it seemed to focus on one word. “Help,” it said, but it didn’t come out quite right. “Help,” it said again, more distinctly, more urgently. Or maybe it was a bird calling in the distance.

 

I crept closer, although I still couldn’t see it clearly. “Do you need help?”

 

“Need help.” This time the voice was plaintive, childlike.

 

“Okay, okay,” I said in my best soothing voice. “I can help you. Let me help you.” I took a step forward, but that was too much for the child-figure.

 

It gave a wordless cry, like the honking of a horn and suddenly I was engulfed in the dull, red, throbbing pain I had imagined the city to be in before. I understood suddenly.

 

“You’re the city.”

 

And the pain stopped, the child figure looked at me, cocked its head to the side curiously, and then I woke up.

 

Needless to say, I didn’t go back to sleep that night, nor did I go to city-hall the next day. I was continuously berated by the rational part of my brain. It was just a dream, I told myself. That child isn’t going to be there. You’re the only one here.

 

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

 

You aren’t supposed to get hurt in dreams, the emotional part whispered.

 

The rational part had no response.

 

 

I stayed awake for as long as I could- I really did. But soon enough I saw the city in that organically geometric way again, and I knew I had fallen asleep.

 

There was a term for this- lucid dreaming. I knew I was dreaming, that should allow me to control the events of the dream. There had been documented cases of it.

 

It didn’t stop me from being scared.

 

I didn’t want to go to city-hall again. I didn’t want to see that child-figure again. I sat on the stoop of my borrowed apartment building. And nothing happened.

 

I was actually rather bored.

 

It seemed I would have to go to city-hall in order to move the events of the dream forward. I thought about the peacefulness I had felt at the building. No, I wasn’t scared of city-hall, as red and pulsing as it was. It was that child-figure. And it wasn’t just the pain it had caused me, the whole scenario had been disturbing. The child/not-child thing it had been. The indistinctly parroted phrases, or city sounds. The male/femaleness of it- and that wasn’t androgyny. It had truly seemed both male and female.

 

In short, the child-figure scared me. It was a paradox or a dichotomy or something that just couldn’t happen.

 

Like a city emptying without reason?

 

It suddenly seemed clear to me. I had wanted to go to city hall yesterday, had reasoned that I would find answers there. And I had found… something. Something that I had last night thought was the city. An incarnation of it, anyway. The living, breathing (sort of) embodiment of it. If a city is no longer a city, if it falls suddenly out of its city-state, what does it become?

 

The child-figure.

 

And as if that thought had summoned him/her, s/he appeared in front of me. I’m not sure if it had been walking towards me, or if it had just appeared.

 

“You. Did Not. Come.” Its speech was getting better, now almost too distinct, with separate words almost sounding like separate sentences.

 

“You frightened me.”

 

It cocked its head to the side. It didn’t understand.

 

I tried again. “I was scared. I don’t understand you- what you are.”

 

“You said. I was. The City.” The distinct little sentences were becoming longer.

 

“Yes. I know.” I sighed. How to explain what I didn’t fully understand myself? “But the city is supposed to be buildings and roads for people to live in and use. You obviously do not fit that definition.”

 

“People.”

 

It wasn’t exactly a question, but I got the feeling that it didn’t understand. “People. Like me.”

 

It cocked its head to the side again. “I- remember. I hurt. People,” and it looked at me, as if to make sure it was using the term correctly, “left. I didn’t- I hurt!”

 

Despite myself, I cowered at the figure’s emphatic exclamation. I feared the pain I knew it could cause me. It looked at me again. “Frightened.”

 

“Yes. You hurt me last night.”

 

I had noticed gradually through our peculiar conversation that the figure, like its speech, was becoming more distinct. It was still blurry, but I could make out facial features. I could see anguish on its face. “I. Did not mean.”

 

“I know.” And strangely, I did. “You fear the pain, too.”

 

“Hurts,” it whimpered. “Not knowing.”

 

“Not knowing what?”

 

“Anything.”

 

 

This time, when I woke, there was no internal struggle. The rational part of my mind did not berate the emotional side. The answers had to be at city hall. That’s where the figure was, where it had waited for me last night. Would it be there during the day? Was it corporeal? Could I contact it while awake? It was the city, I was certain of that now, no matter that that very fact might mean I belonged next door to the old man. The figure was the city.

 

It remembered people leaving. It remembered pain- the pain of transition, as the old man had said? Perhaps in its pain, it had driven the people out. Despite my dreams, I felt no discomfort living here. Had the same dreams driven out the former inhabitants? I had to know.

 

Grabbing my pack, I made my way towards city hall. I hadn’t been outside in two days, and now I was noticing a strangeness to the buildings that I passed. I couldn’t put my finger on it- maybe they were turning into the strange geometrically organic state I had seen in my dreams.

 

Whatever was happening, it definitely got stronger as I neared city hall. I could feel my heart in my throat, taste the fear in my mouth. It hadn’t meant to hurt me, but that hadn’t stopped it. Would it be more or less unpredictable face-to-face?

 

“Hello?” I called, my voice was hoarse. I cleared it and called again. “Hello? I came this time!”

 

There was no answer.

 

Part of me was surprised that city hall was not red and pulsing as it had been in my dream. The other part was disappointed that I did not feel the serenity the dream-place had given me. But- and I couldn’t be completely sure that this wasn’t some psychosomatic effect- I did feel a sense of calm. Perhaps what I had seen in my dream was what the city was slowly turning into. I had mixed feelings about that.

 

“I’m here!” I called again, but this time, it was half-hearted at best. Something had happened, something I couldn’t quite put a finger on. With no recourse left, I entered city hall.

 

It was dark, shadowy. I flicked a flashlight on, but its beam seemed weak. Stop it, I told myself sternly. I had put in new batteries and a new bulb in before I left on this venture to the city. There was no reason that the beam should be anything but strong. This was just a case of my overactive imagination again. Steeling myself, I wandered the halls, no true destination left to me.

 

I wandered for what seemed like hours, occasionally calling out to the figure. I should have given up. It wasn’t showing, and I didn’t know if that was because it had no corporeal form, or because it only showed at night, or what have you, but I felt such a calmness and a complacency wandering the building, that any time the thought of leaving entered my mind, it quickly fled. But I was an organic being, and I couldn’t keep walking forever. My feet were hurting and my legs were cramping, interfering with the state of complacency I was in. I started feeling tired and cranky. My aimless wandering suddenly turned purposeful, and I spun on my heel, heading for the exit.

 

With my complacent mood gone, I started to feel… something. Something not entirely right. I lengthened my stride. My flashlight, with its new battery and bulb, starting flickering, and I could feel my heart start to pound in my ears. I started to jog. When the flashlight went out entirely, I flat out ran. I could feel a primordial fear enter my blood. Please, let me get out before it gets me, I silently begged, not really knowing what “it” was. I could feel the rational section of my mind pondering this, as though it was not a part of me, but watching the proceedings with cold interest. Is the child-figure doing this? But I had been looking for it all day. Why would it chase me? Why would it frighten me like this?

 

But before it decided on an answer, I heard a crack. My world suddenly turned upside before turning red and then all was darkness.

 

 

I woke up to see the child-figure leaning over me. But no, child-figure wasn’t right anymore. It looked more like an adult now. And it was all gold and glowy- how had I never noticed that before? It was still both male and female, but I could make out its features, now. It was beautiful.

 

“Are you hurt?” Its speech was markedly better now, almost human, and although it still sounded almost like faraway city-sounds, I could detect concern.

 

I closed my eyes briefly. “So it wasn’t you?” When I opened them again, the figure looked confused. “Chasing me.”

 

“I am sorry. I tried to stop him.”

 

“Him?”

 

“There are two.”

 

Two of what, I wanted to ask, but before I could, something came in. Another figure like the one I was familiar with, but this one was dark and smoldering. The figure- my figure, as I was surprised to find myself think of it- had referred to this new one as ‘him,’ but I could detect no hint of gender in this one. Where my figure was at once both male and female, this one was completely genderless.

 

They were arguing. About me.

 

“He would have helped us. He would have stayed,” my figure was saying.

 

“He was leaving.”

 

“He would have come back. He was looking for us. He would have come back!”

 

The new figure shook its head. “I need more. I could not risk him.”

 

“He could have brought others. He would have helped.”

 

“They all left. Why should he be different?”

 

“He came.” My figure looked so serene. “He was frightened but he came. He would have helped.”

 

“Now he cannot leave.” And the new figure left.

 

“What’s going on?” I asked my figure.

 

It pursed its lips in an entirely human gesture. “It hurt us, not knowing, for so long.” I nodded. It had told me this much already. “But you came. And you helped.”

 

“How? How did I help?”

 

It looked at me in a way I recognized. It didn’t know quite how to explain. “When we became aware, people left.” I nodded. That much, I understood. “When they left, we were only aware. We did not know- it hurt. We could not gain, could not grow. It hurt.”

 

They had been halted in their development. I could understand how that could be painful. “How did I help?” I asked again, this time my voice a whisper. I could guess.

 

“You came, and we began to grow, to change once more. And you taught me. We learned. The pain lessened. He did not want to let you go.”

 

And suddenly I knew with a terrible certainty what had happened. I wasn’t awake; I wasn’t actually seeing the figure. I knew what had happened. “And so he hurt me. Hit me with- something.”

 

It nodded. “So that you will not return to that other state, the one where you could not see me.” There was a horrifying calmness to its voice. “So that you could stay and teach us. So you could not leave.”

 

I could feel the bile rise in my throat- but that was wrong. It couldn’t. “Am I alive?” I whispered hoarsely.

 

The figure cocked its head to the side with a curiousness that suddenly seemed macabre. “I do not know. What is alive?”

Author's Note

The inspiration for this story happened in the middle of my Greek Civ class one night when I was high on lack of sleep, and my brain was slightly mushy from all the Psych work I'd done recently. It went a little something like this:

Prof: Does anyone know what a city-state is?

Class: Half asleep ...

Me: thinking, after losing sleep doing psychology homework all week A city-state. The state of being a city. *Internal giggle* Hey that's good. Instant story idea.* Another internal giggle.* Instant story idea, just add plot! Lord, I really need sleep.