the City

the City
Perhaps it was a dream, she thought. Perhaps if she pinched herself, she would wake up. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to stay in this dream world where she could finally catch her breath. She woke above, her fingertips skimming the extravagant tufts of the afternoon. A soft breeze brushed by, emitting a hollow hush like angels whispering in her ears. Her wide eyes scanned the peculiarities around her, trying to define their discoveries. She couldn't find the words, only: removed. How wonderful to live so high, so freely. Strange was everything surrounding her. She thought it euphoric. 

She knew she would wake soon; the trips got shorter every time. She could hear the silence pulsing below her. They would drag her back to the accursed ground of the City. The City. Her vision blurred. She wiped her face, surprised; it had been so long since she felt her tears. For an eternity, she had lived a partial life. Too many nights, she had slept in a wallless prison. An existence ago, when the darkness surrounded her. A land of overlapping gray, composed of soot, smog, and asphalt. Each morning, her eyes opened to a cycle of bleakness. Each night she fell asleep with a glimmer of hope, a slight possibility of something more. Only in her highs could she retaliate. 

She felt powerless in the City, demeaned amidst the skyscrapers. She despised them. Tall, smoky giants, all-knowing with their rectangular, glass eyes, peered down at her no matter where she went. Life was oppressive; she rejected society. Years of repetition, horizonless. Years of complaining, regardless. Her growing repugnance inspired her depression. She was grasping at straws in a void of conformity, running through the dark, searching for a change. The City was a labyrinth; the darkness perpetual. Her legs grew heavy as she lost faith with every step. How many years had she stumbled through the looming obstacles? How many times had she woken to a leaden sky? How much of her life was hers to control? A run to a walk, a walk to a crawl, her body collapsed as she succumbed to fatigue. 

The angels peer down at her as she descends from the clouds. They remove her guise—a fleeting ignorance. A world devoid of color is a world uninhabitable, hopeless. The syringe falls limply from her cold, blanched hand.

 

Sean Kim

CA

18 years old

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