Arunika

Once, a woman decided she would build a city. Daybreak--- the first light easedover the hills like a distant fog. She moved through her house past a dresser and a windowsill, their edges draped in silver light like the lace that veiled her hair. She passed her front door. An old spider weaves in the folds of an umbrella. She passed an open bedroom. A child’s bed collects sunlight like fallen leaves in its sagging frame. She passed the kitchen. Lilac petals lie scattered by the vase near the sink. The sound of a hand on the door. The sound of shifting dust. Still, a child’s laughter, arching over the house in the morning light.

The desk stood at the end of the hallway, under her garden window. From the first drawer, she withdrew a notebook, carefully placing to the side the photograph lodged in its pages. Who is the man? A friend, a lover? The shadow of a lilac tree. A dandelion in his breast pocket. Nights catching fireflies, a memory at most, and he returns (gently, gently) to the drawer. Before her, the empty page, the desolate plain, the first creeping shadows of her design.

.-.-.-.-.

Nahbi

Soon, the city of Nahbi will emerge. Its outer walls appear to the traveler like a secret unfolding, elusive, a creature lurking in the shadows of green. Here and there, darkness scored with stray beams of light. You will not recognize Nahbi as the city it is until the stones of the main road, covered in moss and shade, place themselves beneath your feet. Nahbi is a hidden city. Its inhabitants are silent people who communicate in private signs and signals. The wind changes. The butcher is closing early. The night-blooming cereus open. Will you be home for dinner? A movement in the leaves. Yes.

The forest is understanding and does its best to protect the city. In return, it is not rare to find the trunk of an oak pushing through the center of a cobbled road. Neighborhood children have fashioned a house in its branches, and the carts and pedestrians relinquish their right-of-way. Natives take turns using the sidewalk to walk to and from the library, the bakery, Mrs. Cook’s fabric shop. You find Nahbi by chance. Stumbling in the shadow, you pass the mountain laurel, follow the stream, turn left at the cedar grove instead of right. In a sudden clearing, you rub your eyes against the brightness and find the Russel family on a crosswalk in front of you, their children trailing behind like newborn quail. Savor your memories of Nahbi, traveler. During the night, the forest will cover your path in a new veiled depth, and you will find yourself on the other side.

.-.-.-.-.

The woman considered her sketch. Curve of an arch. Scalloped peak of a roof. The shoosh shoosh of a child’s sandals as he runs through a vine-covered courtyard. Outside her window, the morning lapses into early afternoon. Shadow lines of her cheek and jaw leaking across the edge of the desk. Sun shines through the leaves of her birch tree and against the bark, the leaves glow a kind of green missing from the inky shade of Nahbi. She blinked, reconsidered. Where is that penetrating light? Where is the white skin of the birch?

Kramoris

The fortress of Kramoris crouches on a cliff by the sea. To the south lies the desert. The ground is clay and dust, orange and red, which clouds windows and stains the pale skin on the back of the neck. The trees have been painted white at their base to protect them from insects. Wind from the ocean tosses long pale grasses to and fro but the scrub bushes hold their ground. To the north, the sea spreads itself wide and covers the horizon from end to end. Kramoris, perched on the edge, is never free of the thundering din, the waves that crash and suck at the rocks below.

Enter the city to find the lakes, the fields and orchards that keep the inhabitants of Kramoris fed. As you pass through groves of pear trees, another barrier of stone rises up to block the way. The black hinges of its gate are larger than your head. A man waves from the shadow of the archway as you pass, but the words of his greeting are lost; the roar of voices from within overwhelms you both.

Welcome to Kramoris proper, a massive system of grids, of boulevards that criss-cross the city, of merchants, dealers, peddlers and hawkers. Enter a square; find anything you need. Livestock? Three streets left, down four blocks. Dairy? Right at the next intersection, you can’t miss it. Buttons? Try the North West corner. The oasis between the deserts has the whole world mapped onto its squares. Twelve dancing slippers. A golden fleece. A dress as silvery as the moon, as golden as the sun, as bright as the stars. The venders fling their harsh cries into the air like nets. Spend an hour. Spend a day. Spend a lifetime.

.-.-.-.-.

She considers her sketch, the clean straight lines dividing her page in half, in half, in half and half again. Above her, the shadows of her garden leak purple across the grass, startlingly green in the orange light of the end of the day. Her window mimics the Kramoris of her notebook in reverse, white grid against colored and darkening panes. Her bare feet have collected dust between her toes. Where was the city she would build? She ran her hands across the pages of her notebook, palms and fingertips, imagining the walls of her city hidden in the raised patterns. She opens the window to let in the last evening breeze and tries one more time.

Arunika

The traveler who finds himself in Arunika may not, at first glance, recognize anything unusual. At the corner, the elementary school. Henry Gruene’s general store sells ice cream down the street. A man and a woman sit in rocking chairs on their front porch, sipping lemonade and remembering days of stolen kisses, of chocolate for breakfast, of picnic blankets and sunflower seeds. At the bus stop, a man who could have taught you long division. There, riding her bike around the corner, the long-lost sister you never had.

Everyone enjoys the morning. There’s a hushed anticipation, a gray stillness in the cool and quiet hours. Somewhere, a child’s laughter echoes like birdsong; the light breeze running along the curb picks it up along with a few fallen leaves. You find a park with an inviting tire swing and decide wait for the beginning of this new day. In a few hours, you will tire of waiting.

Arunika is not a normal city. Most places you visit do not move. Time washes over them like a river, each moment buffeting the edges of the city until it is smooth and round as any other pebble. What the traveler does not realize is that “morning” is not a moment that disappears and reappears every day. Morning is a place, a band of almost daylight circling the earth. This is where the traveler finds Arunika. Along its western rim, the edge of night bleeds across an invisible border. Roads dark as mud fade to silvering dust. To the east, the sand and stones become warm and honey-gold where the path curves toward day.

Arunika, the stone still fresh and jagged. Arunika, passing through, passing you by. The slap of bare feet on the sidewalk. Dawn under the lilac tree. Bird song. A city in the midst of becoming.