The Place That Time Forgot

There is always something permanent about the air that surrounds the city, as if the very space that slips between the buildings refuses to give way to the solidity of the body. The land is still the same: a mixture of emptiness and tall buildings, rivers that meander through the cityscape, unmindful of the concrete bridges and the children playing by its shores. Everything here runs in horizontal lines, leading the eyes across the patterns of sleep.

I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here, with the knowledge that I am character in a story and that I am supposed to search for my epiphany here, where everything is rounded and lazy-daisy yellow. Tell me if I am still supposed to find a compass, an arrow wreathed in neon, telling me where I am going next. I am swimming in an unfamiliar dream here, where things never seem to change. See – my name is still engraved on my things, even after three years of absence.

Arriving at tomorrow seems to be a repetition of days. There will still be the same sunrise, the same border of ferns across the window, the same wooden slats that separate the heat from the coolness of the shadow. This a city of black and white, where everything moves five seconds slower, where even the wind prefers to slow down.