The City Read online

You opened your eyes and saw a woman’s face.

  She was looking down at you.

  “He’s coming to.”

  Then you saw another face, the face of an older man, a doctor. This person told you that you had been found earlier that day passed out in an alleyway.

  For the next few hours, you couldn’t think properly. You were released from the hospital, and had gone to a coffee shop where you stared blindly out the window while sipping at a coffee.

  Everything appeared normal, familiar. It was a cloudy day, cars were solemnly passing by on the streets and people were going in and out of shops, buying things, talking in phone booths and on cells, catching buses and hailing taxi cabs.

  However, there was something disconcerting about it all. You couldn’t put your finger on it.

  Then a picture struck you, that of a boundless field. It was a field outside the city, you were sure. You were not sure of its significance, but it had enough meaning to draw you to continue to ponder it.

  You were unfamiliar with the city which you were in and you didn’t know from where you had come. You didn’t know where you were supposed to be or who you were. You only knew that there was more than this city, that there was an open field somewhere that you recognized.

  You had to get out of the city and go through the field.

  Without finishing your coffee, you went outside and went to the road and stuck your thumb out. After a short while a red taxi pulled over to let you in. Inside was an older man wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses. You asked him if he could take you to the field outside the city.

  He told you that there was no such field, and that the city led into other cities.

  At first you didn’t know what to say. You decided to let him take you out of the city and into the next so that you could see for yourself.

  He said to hop in.

  Neither of you spoke a word during the drive. When you reached the city border, he let you out and repeated that there was no field.

  Outside, you looked around as the car drove off. You didn’t see the slightest hint of a field, but only city—apartment buildings, houses, roads, and a busy highway.

  But you wouldn’t believe it. There was still a peculiarity about everything, much like how you had sensed when you were in the cafe. You walked down to the bridge going over the highway and gazed out into the distance at the various elements of the city.

  You did not believe it. You did not agree. It didn’t seem real.

  It wasn’t real, you told yourself.

  Then something strange occurred: The view of the highway and apartments started to change into that of an endless, grassy field.

  A familiar fear began simmering within you.

  Turning around, you found yourself standing at the edge of a city, at the start of fields which went on seemingly forever. In your fear, you lost sensation of parts of your body, and you no longer breathed peacefully, but you started to run anyway...

  You felt traces of excitement within your fear; you were going to find out about the unknown, while everyone else slept in it, ate and worked unknowingly in the unknown.

  You were being watched. Looking up, you spotted a small dark speck floating about in the blue sky. Were you going to turn back? Something drove you onward; you weren’t going to turn back.

  It was then that you recalled something: You had been in this field before, not long ago, and you had been running as you now ran. You had been running away from the city and farther into the field. You had to keep going.

  Yet you saw the dark thing drawing nearer to the field.

  You kept going. You recalled seeing this thing before. You were going to see it again, you knew.

  Strangely, your fear of this thing subsided a little. You decided to stop running and face the mysterious object. You waited there in the field, alone, with a cool breeze blowing past, watching as the flying object approached. You could see that it carried a reddish glow, which was also familiar to you.

  It lowered itself to the ground in front of you, a round ball of a thing, about the size of a small home. It stopped a few feet above the grass and floated there.

  Some fear returned and your legs began to shake, yet you stood on your feet and you continued to face the odd thing...

  ...nothing happened. It simply floated there.

  Your fear dissipated. Clarity surfaced within you, about where you really were and where you had to go, and even about whom you were and what you had to do. You had to continue on further into the apparent nowhereness of the field.

  Because there was something out there, a somewhere.

  You walked around the red sphere and continued on your way. As you went, you looked back and saw the ball rise into the air, and return to the sky, where it vanished desperately.

  You hurried on, imagining what sorts of people, environment and culture you would encounter, and you kept close to your heart a promise to yourself: to bring whatever you would find in that new world to the people of the miserable, sleeping city which you had left behind...

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  Other Short Fiction Titles Available:

  Lukka Andorra (Beautiful Woman)

  The Last Streetcar to Somewhere

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