Metropolis 1

Imagine a Metropolis...

A capital of all the dead empires, an inexhaustible city, a movie set which is hyper-real and indestructible. A new Babylon perhaps, greater than New York London Paris Rome, an accumulated Mexico City, breeding place of huge rumbling discontents, acres of scrap and sex, delighting in a continuing rebellion, an affirmative refusal!

Vast dark city that, like a videogame, can be moved into in theoretical space, except endlessly, so that you move like a blip on a screen within no confines. The virtual metropolis, a game of wish, so that by traversing dream-alleys you could encounter manifestations of other selves, frightening incarnations of buried desire, gangs of sex-workers doomed and jubilant.

Your wishes come true. Sour, ugly, disappointing, biologically blooming around you like a filthy chaos of spreading crystal. 

This is our labyrinth and our dream-city, to which we must surrender our hearts. Have you ever felt the truth that there is an anti-Jerusalem and a newer Babylon, where you will be expurgated and purged?

Would you step into the depths of a city where all the secret thoughts of your heart were instantly, ominously made flesh? Would you watch the secret movie of your desires, mixed and mingled with angst and trepidation? Your dreams imploded and reversed, set in negative form, your wishes imparted with a breath of life, free to move and feel pain.

Your breath, outflowing, is the guarantee. Forming the particles and atoms of the sharply-embodied citizens of the Metropolis. Identical with the old mystery religions. 

The Pearly King 5

"The Fisher's son, Edmund, an intelligent and classy boy, had grown up to have an elegant and gainful interest in the past, and after the death of his parents had inherited all their various effects, including miscellaneous papers, among which the above narrative was found.
Edmund was tall, neat, ash-blond, respectable. For him the story seemed to be of great importance, and being interested in the profits to be had from the antiques market he speculated about its potential value. He decided to preserve his copy of "the Pearly King", the only one in existence. He had had it framed and insured, and exhibited it periodically in local museums.
Far in the future, the air and weather had got to the manuscript. Leaves had fallen and drooped off, the thing was torn and creased almost beyond recognition. As if it had lain about on tatty floors for decades, or been kicked endlessly up and down a flight of stairs. Like a dessicated corpse, like a withered leaf. Finally, all that was left in its sturdy frame was one page, on which thin, ancient type could still be made out. The page torn at the edges, impossibly creased and fragile, as thought it could, at a touch, crumble to dust.
Local paper sent to photograph Edmund. With the one remaining page set behind him in its frame. Now priceless. A great art treasure. Relic of a bygone time. His face beaming, red-cheeked. Surrounded by memorabilia and museum-pieces".
And, in this way, the story ended.

The Pearly King 4

Now all this is rather over the top, thought I to myself as I roamed along, reading, and no doubt this friend of mine, the author, had indulged a mite too heavily in the aforementioned substances.
But this friend of mine, this friend of a friend, this fictional narrator, a mythical figure of old wars (all confused now in my mind) had survived it seems, grown old, and committed his reminiscences to paper.
My friend had put it in fictional form, one of his mordant and peculiar stories, nearly printed out and circulated among friends. Concerning the Vision of the Pearly King, his or another man's experience. Whoever had seen the Pearly King (and of this there is no doubt) had been impressed down to his core, awed, stilted, blasted by the power of the sight.
I read on... The story, written out once more in the final text, neat and masterly, was presented by the author as a wedding gift to his great friends, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. A bourgeois and complacent couple, soft and self-indulgent, in their thirties. Picture his idle hands around her slim waist, her graceful smile and soft eye, his head drooping. Like middleclass semi-bohemians, they got married.
On I plod, engrossed in the narrative, taking the odd swig from my flask. But for some reason when I saw that name, "Fisher", the milky tea chocked and glugged in my throat. Out it came in a spasming spray, from mouth and nostrils, onto the street. I coughed violently for a moment, my eyes streaming.
A pause to recover myself. A wee rest against a convenient garden wall. Drying the page of tea-spray and spit. "Fisher? What of it?... not to worry... no connection... Fisher, a commonly occurring name, little, middling, of no great import- Almost anonymous!"
Thus reassured, I commenced my stroll, my lungs feeling normal. And with a shrug, found my place in the script, shunted forward, knocking back another draught of tea. And now I was nearing the end. A sort of a postscript, further continuing the fate of the story.