The Ultimate Urbanity

Imagine a row of skyscrapers, like jagged shards of ice, stretching both vertically and into the far horizon where the land merges with the sky. Except that that horizon is not the oracular magic that we are faced with when gazing into the blue ocean in another locale, in another time, distant as the wellsprings of creation. It is not featureless and straight; rather, it somewhat resembles a spider's thin web, a strand of a million drops of water, sparkling with iridescent light. It is a range of slender peaks and huge, towering monoliths, resplendent with Gothic majesty or outstanding in ultramodern glamour.

Imagine New York, and envision it in your mind. What if the skyscrapers of humanity's greatest concrete edifice were stretched? What if they, like a ubiquitous mould, were to spread? What if the shaded, decrepit alleys of the Bronx became a breeding ground of Fostereque experimentations? Or if Staten Island, with its suburban sprawl, were to become a nexus for the creation of a new Manhattan? Going a step further, what if Times Square were to be buried underneath the crush of sedimentation, as newer, taller, bigger stalactites of glass, steel and chrome trampled the poor urban products of the rush of the twentieth century? In the headlong race to greatness, there can be no respite from the outcast creations of the past. There is only forward; there is no looking back.

And so the Eiffel tower becomes a support strut. A museum piece in the abode of giants. Seas vanish. The sun goes higher, the climate bleaker. Our feet cease contact with the ground and the works of men, as great as the labours signalling the active creation of a purpose, are swallowed by the rising edifices of the new and great, a flowering of creativity and expression. And the legions of the past can only look with wonder at the vast new undertaking that they have sired.

Tired, they fade out of sight but not memory.

"No, Luke. I am your father."