Gale cringed as he barely swallowed a mouthful of salty water. He felt like cleaning his tongue with bleach afterward. Rather instead he crunched several strong mints, trying to dismiss the call of alcohol during such an insufferable wait, but in its absence, his solution somehow worked.
Or at least made it so withdrawal was comparatively pleasant.
The trip to dover was... forgettable, given the circumstances. The numbness had been the only presence throughout the entire journey. Only now, sitting waiting for that damn ferry surrounded by... them, did he now have some semblance of conscious thought eek into his mind.
The main one in particular: 'Turn that bloody music down.'
The presence of his fellow man in such close proximity was horrendous. Gale had tried getting a maybe an hour's rest in, yet the endless chattering and blaring music was relentless. It was like trying to sleep during a festival.
Yet Gale tuned in with some level of curiosity at one array of sounds in particular. He could catch muffled words here and there, a language he spoke. A context he understood.
"Turn that up would you." He instructed the couple in the car next to him. They gave him a curious look, before thankfully obliging.
"... Well the consensus from the scientific community is still out really. Many major research institutes are still demanding more irrefutable evidence on the matter, yet one thing that cannot be understated is the sheer number of responses it has had over one element in particular." The guest was clearly a scientist of some kind. There was a bitterness to his rather wordy response.
"In regards to this 'City'?" The radio DJ responded ever upbeat, Gale's eyebrows lowered.
"Exactly." The scientist said. "I'm amazed by it myself, the sheer amount of people, myself included, that actually know of this City... it is absolutely baffling."
"But what is it exactly?" the presenter asked intrigued. "Are we talking like Bristol, London, Reading..?"
"Don't you ever compare the City to Reading." Gale's voice was full of disgust and bile, earning him another set of unsure glances from the occupants of the vehicle he now leaned on. "...or Bristol for that matter... let alone London."
"Do you know anything about this?" The woman asked, turning the radio down. Gale nodded.
"The City is, well. It's the City... It's the only word for it, the only name it could have. Some have called it others, Heaven... Asgard... Urbe Somnia..." Gale's expression softened, in his peripheral vision he could see others listening in. He raised his voice. Finally, after so many years he had an audience. "But the City predates all of those names... It always was... Spire after Spire almost grown from glass and marble of every colour, reaching into the skies for miles under a perpetual dawning sun... Causeways of crystal and stone spanning between them. Light radiated through it in all colours, flowing through every surface. It contains the dreams and wishes of every human ever born on planet earth, every one to ever achieve true sentience. It is our home, if Earth is where our body lives. Then the City is where our soul does."
Gale smiled at the recognition on their faces. "You remember it don't you?"
"How did you know that?" The woman's partner asked, very serious. In the silence that followed one could hear the continuing discussion on the radio. The woman turned it up, as if it too had an answer.
"...Cameron from Worcestershire says 'I remember it! What do you mean others have had it?', Daisy from Bristol says 'I climbed those spires as a child, they glimmer like a geode in the sunlight... Is this a trick?' and Rachel from Wiltshire says 'I barely remember it but I had that same dream. I don't remember when they stopped...'"
YOU ARE READING
The Fallen City
General FictionDo you remember it? There was a time we all did... We once loved it, we were once nurtured by it. A City, so grand, so beautiful. So enthralling, we promised we would always believe. We promised it we'd never let go But you did. You all did. And now...
