its ports convulsed with containers, and its industry frothed money from deliveries. but never for the goods received.
like all urban centers, the street commerce boomed. good and services exchanged and people live and die by the sidewalk. the invisible economics of a certain corner. a spot of grass, or a secret word yelled into the night.
the cities core. its center swelled with reminiscence. a waft of a past that recently had made an appearance.
the core was infamously known to be rotting. a place where white rich people chewed their nails as they navigate ally’s desperately lost. terror in their eyes, trying to find a way back to the main drags. punching blindly at their gps screen.
the core contained, like many cores. something so distinctive that it was impossible to recreate.
it held the city up, and down. the city rotated around it. so fast you could not feel it moving. but if you stood still for long enough… your feet would leave the ground. if you went to deep into the core. you would die. but burning so hot, it was untouchable. and it glowed. it glowed like nothing else.
the contents are not tactile things. not something to capture, package and sell.
and if you looked past the glow. if you just looked hard enough, because really it was not that bright. it was there; the magic of the core. the swarming crows. the beaming faces. a greeting yelled across the street. a familiar face lost for months. a shared joke, or smoke. the center of the legendary city. an invisible population. hiding behind bright lights.
but to truly be invisible. non existent in another perspective. a reality so unimaginable that it makes people chew their nails in anxiety to be exposed to it. rendered non existent, because your life, an existence remains only in legend for most.
but as the legend of a city grows, so does it value.
the city itself, a product.
you could wander the streets for days in search of a hello or a smile. its reputation boasted friendly citizens, but this was somehow lost in translation when the cement hits your shoes. the cement see’s when those shoes carry you away. but it cannot talk back. not from in front of the glow.