Word Count: 1671 | Reading Time: 6 min
The city was laid out on the expansive oak, its mountains running in a continuous halo around its body, fused to the table’s edges. Its mouth was stretched into a smile like an open wound with lips, tongue, and teeth. Forests protruded from its belly, and birds flew around the canopy of ancient trees. Though it was still shrouded in darkness, she could see the rhythmic breathing of its chest beyond the glass wall. The ritual was not too far off.
Her body ached with longing; a slow-burning melancholia settled into her bones. She realized she was still standing in the doorway. Turning her attention towards the room, she looked at the chosen. She noticed they were six in total, all men except for herself and a woman dressed in blue. Dress to the occasion, they had instructed, and dressed to the occasion, the chosen were. All of them were wearing their finest fit. The exquisite colours and patterns were not only meant to reflect their identities, but their cause, as well. She was devoid of all colour, dressed in a monochrome heather grey cloak. Her cause was not the ritual, but the city itself.
She could see the polite restraint in everyone’s body language. They talked among themselves, but they kept their words to a minimum. She spoke to no one because she understood their scorn for her kind. Leftovers, they had called her kind for centuries.
Beyond the glass wall, the city whizzed to life in anticipation of the ritual—light spilled out of houses, apartment buildings, and twisted in streets in a warm glow. Sounds filled the air around it—of children playing in the field, babies crying for their mothers, mothers calling out to their children amongst the clinking of dinner plates, men talking about cars and their neighbour’s wives—sounds of life. The city was alive and throbbing with them.
The chosen started towards the glass wall beyond which the city was now abuzz with life.
They gathered around the oak table and looked at the city with eyes that gleamed like hungry wolves, but their demeanour was starkly restrained and polite.
The ritual would begin with any of them taking the first bite, however, each of them waited for the other to take the first plunge. The woman in blue nudged the man in crimson. The man in green politely asked for permission to dig in. Permission was granted, as everyone else leaned into the city with greed and anticipation.
The man in green reached into the city’s belly and pulled out forests and ancient trees with hundreds of tree rings—their young white roots attached. He opened his mouth to its full capacity and placed the forests onto his tongue. He seemed to have no difficulty swallowing them whole. Lapping up the green sap that escaped the corners of his mouth, he put his hands again into the city’s belly and pulled out more of the forests. Everyone waited for him to finish as they watched him devour all of the city’s trees.
Next was the woman in blue, who stood up and claimed the city’s mouth. Through its throat, she pulled up streams of clear blue water, turquoise lakes, and rivers of raging waterfalls. She stacked them onto her fork in a heap, turning them against the concave of her spoon. She put it into her mouth with grace.
Now it was the turn for the men in crimson; they were a pair, their movements synchronized to the finest details. Both of them slid their hands into the pulsating flesh between the city’s legs. They pulled up a newborn with an umbilical cord attached. The chosen gasped at the sight. We aren’t savages, they said in unison. The two men nodded as if playfully accepting their mistake and returned the baby. In their second attempt, they pulled out the mother and asked her to choose which one of her children she would part with. The mother reluctantly provided an older child. The men looked around as they gobbled it up, as if to gauge the rest of the group’s reaction.
The chosen were divided on this. Three of them didn’t seem to mind the horror too much. One was visibly displeased. The one aside from her, who was awaiting his turn, was only interested in reaching into the city’s womb and pulling out a destruction of his own. However, none of the chosen bothered to speak up or contest the atrocity.
She only wanted to hug the city, absorb it into her cells, fit it between her skin and subcutaneous fat.
When her turn came after the man in gold, who exhausted the city’s crops and fields, stripping it of its food sources, she parted her grey robe to reveal her split chest. She placed both of her hands on her splitting ribs and made the opening wider. Her crimson heart was faintly flickering in the absence of all colour. She slid her fingers under the city’s skin, her hands came out drenched with the hues of flowers, and warmth of the sunsets, swirling constellations, and flights of birds balanced on her knuckles. She smeared those between her ribs, placed the constellations in her breasts.
She reached in again, into the city’s eyes. This time, she pulled out the wailing of mothers, the throbbing rot from its streets, the limbless-hungry childhoods, and the reeking wars; she carefully planted those in her sinews, stuck the destruction between the layers of fat under her skin.
The city breathed its last. Its throbbing belly fell still, the warm glow of light faded to darkness, and the chatter of life around it floated into silence. She pushed her parted ribs together and adjusted her cloak.
The curtain fell, and the crowd cheered them on as they walked onto the stage in a single file. She was the last to leave, tears welling up in her eyes as she patted the city’s dead face.
The crowd fell silent as they all stood on stage, forming a firm line. They were required to present in the order in which they had chosen to devour the city.
The green man stepped ahead, green sap escaping the corners of his mouth. He asked the crowd to give him a cup. When they gave him several cups, he took them all and let the sap in his mouth slowly fill those up. One after the other. When he returned the filled cups to the crowd, he smeared some of the sap onto his fist and raised it into the air.
“Prosperity!” he screamed. “I lead you to growth and abundance!”
A huge part of the crowd started scrambling around, looking for cups or vessels. He led them away with the promises of filled cups.
The remaining crowd saw the woman in blue step out from the line. She pulled back the skin from her fingers, and water started dripping from their tips. The dripping turned into waterfalls, and the crowd leapt at her feet. She also led her people away, letting the water drip and trail behind her.
The third were the men in crimson. They both raised their hands in sync. Blood dripped from their mouths as they chanted one word—future. They amassed a very prosperous-looking section of the crowd. Future, future, louder and louder they chanted, as they let their people follow them on.
The man who stripped the city’s food sources stood closer to the edge of the stage and heaved out a bulk of grains from his mouth and onto the crowd—rice, wheat, barley, and seeds. He didn’t have to chant or make any gestures. The biggest portion of the crowd bowed to him. He, too, cheerfully led his followers away.
The crowd had depleted significantly by the time it was her turn; she only needed a few. She walked towards the edge of the stage, but she didn’t stop when she reached it, she got off, and stepped into the handful of people who craved more than promises and worldly possessions.
Without wasting a second, she took off her cloak, leaving her naked body underneath fully exposed. Her skin was see-through, her ribs and bones were made of glass, her small breasts carried swirling constellations. Between her ribs were rows and rows of flowers: petunias, roses, marigolds, and tulips; it looked like a rainbow of colours. Her organs were forests bursting with life—birds flew over the canopies of trees, rivers spun through her veins, her heart was the sun, giver of light—her womb was an ecosystem.
She was a world of her own—art and poetry against the backdrop of consumption. She was the suffering, the healing, necrotic scab of the city’s wound.
The first to offer himself was a young boy from the crowd, his chest welled up into a sob as she parted his chest and planted her insides into his darkened cavity. One by one, she planted her empathy into each of their chests until she had nothing left to give. She fell to the ground and shattered into shards, slowly infecting the ground she touched with life and healing.
The city will be born again from the shards of her being, healing will sprout out of her remains, and life will burst from all that she leaves behind. The handful of people in her crowd will journey to other rituals, hoping to reach the next city in time. And she will have served her purpose in the universe.
***
The young boy is devoid of all colour. He hides his split chest under his heather grey cloak, just like his leader before him, and her leader before her. The boy walks towards the city that is coming to life beyond the glass wall. His mission is only to take in both its suffering and beauty, and turn it into healing and life.
He is poetry and art, against the backdrop of consumption.