The hotel was clean enough and the surly reception staff were inattentive enough to allow me to cocoon myself in the anonymity I desired. Although they cared enough about my lack of identification to need shutting up with a small cash bonus and required the weeks stay to be paid for in advance. A week would be all I would need to cut any remaining ties with the old world and emerge from the chrysalis of solitude into a new life. The air of alienation which shrouds all cities was here in abundance. This city above all others was the archetype for the lonely and disaffected, you could come here and be anyone and no one at the same time. No one knew your name and never would, unless you told them and even then it would instantly be forgotten in the frenetic pace of information overload. Yet somehow this very nature meant that if you wanted to become famous then this was the only place to come. In a world where anyone can make themselves famous for fifteen seconds by uploading a video of themselves from anywhere in the world it felt strangely anachronistic and also reassuring that true fame could only be found by somehow rising to the surface of the ocean of meritocracy that migrated here, year after year, drawn like moths to a flame. Some may shrivel up and die, forever waiting tables as an aspiring actor or singer, the opportunity forever just around the corner. Eventually the rest of their life catches up with them and perhaps they leave the city to start a family in the suburbs, forever wondering what might have been. Others catch the lime light for a few minutes and the flame engulfs them and they are destroyed. Some manage to flutter in and out of the flame, teasing it and basking in its glow without quite getting burnt badly enough to fall. The city was still the flame though and the bigger the city the greater the light it could cast you in.
Thursday 20 September 2012
The City
Ten years ago I would have come here seeking fame and fortune. Back then I wanted to change the world, although back then I would never have had the vision I have now. My dreams then were very different, my aspirations somewhat more grounded, far too near focused for achieving fame and fortune. That's probably why I had never even aspired to visit this place in my youth, perhaps if I had it would have awoken me to the possibilities of life so much sooner and I would have wasted less of my life with such pedestrian pursuits. Now the world hand changed me and I had come here seeking oblivion and anonymity, I was still going to change the world but it was going to be in a big way and the was no way I wanted to be in the front line. I had arrived with one simple shoulder bag and little else. When I had left my old life there had been no time to pack anything more than a change of clothes and a hand full of mementos of people I probably wouldn't see again. The bag was light, the virtues of the digital age meant that the photographic record of my previous incarnation was only a little larger than a postage stamp tucked into my wallet. Apart from that and a huge sheaf of bank notes my wallet was empty, I had carefully stripped it bare of any identifying documents or cards. I would have to furnish my self with some new ones in due course but that was all part of the ordeal of reinvention.
The hotel was clean enough and the surly reception staff were inattentive enough to allow me to cocoon myself in the anonymity I desired. Although they cared enough about my lack of identification to need shutting up with a small cash bonus and required the weeks stay to be paid for in advance. A week would be all I would need to cut any remaining ties with the old world and emerge from the chrysalis of solitude into a new life. The air of alienation which shrouds all cities was here in abundance. This city above all others was the archetype for the lonely and disaffected, you could come here and be anyone and no one at the same time. No one knew your name and never would, unless you told them and even then it would instantly be forgotten in the frenetic pace of information overload. Yet somehow this very nature meant that if you wanted to become famous then this was the only place to come. In a world where anyone can make themselves famous for fifteen seconds by uploading a video of themselves from anywhere in the world it felt strangely anachronistic and also reassuring that true fame could only be found by somehow rising to the surface of the ocean of meritocracy that migrated here, year after year, drawn like moths to a flame. Some may shrivel up and die, forever waiting tables as an aspiring actor or singer, the opportunity forever just around the corner. Eventually the rest of their life catches up with them and perhaps they leave the city to start a family in the suburbs, forever wondering what might have been. Others catch the lime light for a few minutes and the flame engulfs them and they are destroyed. Some manage to flutter in and out of the flame, teasing it and basking in its glow without quite getting burnt badly enough to fall. The city was still the flame though and the bigger the city the greater the light it could cast you in.
The hotel was clean enough and the surly reception staff were inattentive enough to allow me to cocoon myself in the anonymity I desired. Although they cared enough about my lack of identification to need shutting up with a small cash bonus and required the weeks stay to be paid for in advance. A week would be all I would need to cut any remaining ties with the old world and emerge from the chrysalis of solitude into a new life. The air of alienation which shrouds all cities was here in abundance. This city above all others was the archetype for the lonely and disaffected, you could come here and be anyone and no one at the same time. No one knew your name and never would, unless you told them and even then it would instantly be forgotten in the frenetic pace of information overload. Yet somehow this very nature meant that if you wanted to become famous then this was the only place to come. In a world where anyone can make themselves famous for fifteen seconds by uploading a video of themselves from anywhere in the world it felt strangely anachronistic and also reassuring that true fame could only be found by somehow rising to the surface of the ocean of meritocracy that migrated here, year after year, drawn like moths to a flame. Some may shrivel up and die, forever waiting tables as an aspiring actor or singer, the opportunity forever just around the corner. Eventually the rest of their life catches up with them and perhaps they leave the city to start a family in the suburbs, forever wondering what might have been. Others catch the lime light for a few minutes and the flame engulfs them and they are destroyed. Some manage to flutter in and out of the flame, teasing it and basking in its glow without quite getting burnt badly enough to fall. The city was still the flame though and the bigger the city the greater the light it could cast you in.
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Just had a quick read - brilliant!!!
ReplyDeleteSuperb start and like the detached view of the main charaacter and their hidden life
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