it was a dark and stormy night.

I changed my mind -

For as long as I can remember,

beginning when I was a child of three or four,

I have dreamt of the Dark City.

In the beginning there was no city at all.

Simply a crossroads,

lost upon an endless,

dust black plain.

Silent.

Empty.

Beneath a black and starless sky.

It was, and is, a desolate, terrible place.

In my earliest journeys I would often see many people,

busy about some task,

always some distance away.

And, as a child afraid of being alone,

there at the crossroads,

beneath that coal black sky,

I would run towards them,

fast as ever I could.

Yet no matter how fast I ran,

they always remained some distance away.

And so I would awaken, lost for a moment,

alone in my room.

It was quite frightening when I was a child.

Over the years the people have vanished,

for reasons known only to some secret part of my mind

which is inaccessible to "me".

As years have passed,

the City has grown,

so that it spreads now,

far as eye can see.

Nor is it eternally night anymore,

there is sometimes a dim,

strange, ochre light,

which has no source,

and which serves merely

to make the City a more desolate place,

of even less color,

than it has in the dark.

Usually, when I am there in the light,

I find myself standing upon the Great Bridge,

which spans the City, side to side.

Here on Earth such a span,

would be a marvel of engineering,

one of the wonders of the world.

But to stand upon it,

to look out,

across the endless

and empty streets,

is to be as alone

as it is possible to be.

The City is continually changing,

and there are caverns, chambers,

tunnels, forever beneath the City.

Filled with great and terrible

machines.

But what they are,

and why -

I do not know.

Perhaps, if I listen carefully,

the Dark City will tell me stories.

Perhaps, over the years, it already has,

and I need only remember them.

Either case may be true.

and here in this place,

I will share them.