What my eyes see

Michael Nadel
Design IV
1/17/2008

Narrative

My gaze stretches on. Everything is visible. Every wisp of smoke, every shingle on every rooftop, every shining light. The sheer vastness is magnificent, but all the more melancholy. For no matter how far it goes, nor how bright it shines, it remains so obviously indistinct from every other city ever built. Its inhabitants may claim that this city is unique, that it has a soul, but these statements are nothing more than their own opinions, which are so vastly corrupted by the various brain-damaging substances in circulation on these streets. These people are now my peers, and the thought is disgusting. This is the public that scampers about beneath my feet, living out their lives. This great maze steers their movement, directs their feet, and draws them to their next mindless task. Do they even comprehend how these dense blocks control them so? Not likely, but supposing that they did the only difference that it would make is that they would remain controlled with knowledge of their own bondage. But here from this lofty vantage, this city's sins feel forgivable. It may not be special, but it is not unbearable. This Trude of sorts, just like every other Trude, is one and the same as every one of its analogs. The similarity is more than superficial; there is no gap between this city and the next. They may have been separate entities at one point but no longer remain so. And so I'm left here, a full hundred feet above the ground, to ponder what I'm to make of these surroundings. Is this compartmentalized room truly shaped with wisdom? Do the innumerable lights have a meaning? Does this framed view exist to show me some aspect of this concrete jungle that serves some divine purpose? Or could it be that I've simply given the subject more thought than it provokes.

My gaze stretches on.