Dead Cities

That is not dead which can eternal lie

So I've been thinking about cities a lot lately, having moved into a new one.

I look at Inverness, my new city, and I see it bustling with life. There's a burgeoning queer community, an up-and-coming eco-friendly scene, and a few lovely small businesses soldiering on every day.

Compared to my last city (Torquay, actually a town I believe) this is a breath of life.

And yet, another day, another of those small businesses closes down, and the local Facebook groups decry that the town is dying. Or dead. "Oh, I always wanted to go that business!" And yet... well, nestled in the subtext is that these people saw a wonderful business and it's not until it's closing down that they realise what they missed. And then they declare it's the city that's dead.

I don't think a city can die. I think it can become weaker, or hibernate, but die it cannot.

When living beings die, there's no amount of electrochemical stimulation that can bring that being back to their former self. But in most scenarios short of orbital bombardment, a city isn't going anywhere. As long as there are buildings and roads, the city lives on. But it can go dormant when its pulse reaches a critical low.

The thing is, a city doesn't have its own pulse. It has you. You don't monitor the waning heartbeat of oyour city, you make up each and every muscle twitch and laboured breath. You are the heartbeat.

I understand doomerism is fashionable. The city is dead. The planet is doomed. The human race? Done for. And maybe, outside of my navel-gazey semantics, that's true. But we're certainly not helping any of these causes with a self-fulfilling prophecy of the end being nigh.

And with strange aeons even death may die

Don't let you city be dead. Don't let your planet be doomed. You get only a handful of chances to be a part of a city in life, and that life is but one bundle of spins around our star. Why would you waste that time declaring everything will die anyways? Everything already was going to die anyways. We've been doomed the minute the first single-celled life form popped into existence.

And yet the essence of that first life form is still going, millions, billions, trillions of years after it kicked the bucket.

Life is so much bigger than one nice business going under. Life is so much smaller than the end of the world as we know it. Life is us. Life is right now. Life is pushing back the final day by the minute, by the second, by each twitch of a heart that's been beating for eons.

So use that life. Shop at the small businesses while they're open so they can push back their demise ever longer. Take your solace in stealing back bits and pieces of carbon from the atmosphere with each tree you plant and every car ride you don't take. Kick and scream your way into oblivion knowing you lasted just a bit longer on this side. Even if it's by milliseconds.

Kill death. Attack and dethrone your notions of fates. Live life the way life has always lived, or you are the one who is already dead.

Email (normal): JaimieLBlack@outlook.com

Email (author stuff): author@rosalindwulf.com

subscribe to this kind of thing

visit my garden