Entries tagged with short

There were more than a thousand gardens, of course. The place that became the Five Cities was built on the skeleton of a forest and haunted by its fecund past. It was lush with a flamboyant excess of greenspace, laid out and continually added to in an attempt to appease the leafy fates. But such stately verdance was proved a pale shade once dame nature had room to stretch.

The Five Cities gave her that, tearing up asphalt to get to the dirt, handing out flyers about rooftop gardens, letting the ivy and the blackberries have their way with public structures. People who planned gardens were more likely to get solars, oil and meat, which was enough to encourage those who were not inclined to community work.

Taking an already existing system of shame for selfish actions, the Five Cities aimed it precisely. It wasn’t the whole earth they cared about now, just 100-odd square miles. With bribes, requests and guilt, they got their people to let nature have her head.

In hearsay, the Five Cities looked like an eden. A lower population and a retreat from industrialism, combined with enforced community effort, made it true. Where cars had parked, groves now grew. Manicured grass was consumed by clover. Decorative trees cracked sidewalks and turned streets to shady groves. It was as if the place had been waiting all this time, shoots coiled and ready to spring.

And so a place that had been where most people ended up anyway became a sought-after destination. Some used it as a jumping board to the north or to the ocean; others were captured in its green snare.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

It was common knowledge what an overpass was—that is, what they used to be. Vehicles once sped across them, taking people over buildings and streets to the hearts of neighbourhoods. People knew this. They saw vehicles, cars and trucks and panel vans, at the museum for a suggested donation. They could also see them, rusted to anonymity, in any corner of the Five Cities.
People knew about overpasses the same way they knew that thirty miles west was where the good wine came from, hills rolling with vineyards instead of houses and cul-de-sacs. They also knew by the same means that past the vineyards was a thick forest and beyond that, ocean.

    A Big Horrible Thing had happened, half gradually, half suddenly. It brought the world (or at least this part of it) back to the crossroads of the pre-industrial era. It had not, however, made idiots of those remaining. They still had maps and endless books. There were still those who had taught and doctored, travelled and been born somewhere else.
    So, when it was all over, they found a solid well of knowledge to draw from. They’d been very lucky overall. The Big Horrible Thing had not considered them very important and left mostly intact the area that became the Five Cities.
    After a suitable period of mourning and madness, the people rebuilt and modified, finding that they—outside of some unpleasant instances—had adapted rather nicely. Children were taught history and an attempt was made to instill them with the same respect for knowledge which had been the privilege of their parents, more or less.
    It was not strange then, that (years and years later) the first houses built on an overpass reminded people of the Old London Bridge. Nor was it surprising, after this realisation, that they took great precautions against fire. The people of the Five Cities were whimsical and flippant, not stupid.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.

5 Cities: The Thousand Gardens

This could become a habit