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Playgrounds had changed over the years, from sprawling parks filled with trees to metal and plastic structures perfect for climbing, to whatever empty alley was big enough to host a hoard of children with too much energy and not enough space. The stars turned overhead, marking the passage of time and reassuring those that looked upon them that yes, you are here, as are we, and as we will always be until we are not. Unfortunately, those in the city had long ago lost the messages the stars sought to leave, as dust and smog and lights too bright banished them away from sight. The children didn’t mind the loss, for how could you mourn something that you had never had? To grieve over things lost would only be a maddening endeavour, because in life there is always loss, a continuous cycle of life and decay and death.
In the absence of stars, they found new ways to tell the passage of time; the streetlights were always on at 6 pm, the traffic slowed at 10 pm, and the world became as dead and silent as it could in the early hours of 2 am. In the absence of fields, they learned how to run between and above the buildings that stretched to the horizon, and what dangers each way could bring; they became faster, stronger. In the absence of a breeze rustling leaves belonging to plants far older than they’ll ever be, they breathed their own current and filled it with stories.
It was night time, sometime after the streetlights had turned on but before the witching hour, that Emilia snuck down the fire escape of her apartment building with nothing but a blanket and a bag of cat food with her. Upon reaching the alley, she was greeted with a few soft questioning meows and gentle brushes against her legs.
“Shhh, not yet, not here.” The eight-year-old whispered, stepping lightly and away from the streetlights; after all, everyone knew there were ways around the city much faster than following the roads.
Soft shuffling noises and the gentle questioning meows of strays were the only sounds to escape as she travelled further down twisting alleys, jumping over a few separating fences and into the abandoned block that was the best kept secret in the mid-eastern city district. The bones of a forgotten shopping centre, abandoned before it was even completed, watched on as Emilia brought out a series of mismatched bowls out of a crevasse left for electrical wiring that would never take residence; this was not the first time she would bring the strays to the block, nor would it be the last.
The questioning meows of the cats soon grew to yowls as they saw the food being spread out. After a few quick pets and watching the dozen or so cats that had followed her tonight dig into the food, Emilia wandered further between the bone-like columns, disappearing between the rib cage, looking for any new additions to the building that breathed life into such a dilapidated site.
Paintings, sketches and scrawled out messages all fought for space and attention in any place where they were protected from the elements. Each piece had its own story, a journal of daily events to dramatic depictions of trials the artist had drawn from their own mind. It was a clamouring mess, a myriad of colours and styles.
It was home.
The children of the city were too young to know true green, too young to blend in with the working forces of the world. To young to be respected for their views on the city that was their whole world. Too young to be so familiar with danger and loss. Over the city, the places that were abandoned and forgotten were given new life, growing like dandelions determined to crack through concrete sidewalks. From decay they wrought life and fought in silence to keep it, and their stories, alive.
“Your painting is going to be so pretty when you finish it Mura.” Emilia stated, rounding a corner into a shop that was never to be filled, startling the artist that was changing the empty walls into a scene from urban myth.
“Jesus Christ! Emi, if I startled you like you do me then you’d be at least twenty instead of six.” Mura rubbed her hands down her face, smudging blue and grey paint with the brown freckles that followed no order.
Emilia threw her blanket onto the ground with a huff, pointing dramatically at Mura’s growing smile. “I’m eight and you know it! You even gave me a bit of space to write that down last month!” Mura’s smile had now turned into a grin accompanied by barely muffled laughter while Emilia tied back her black hair and pouted.
Maintaining her pout, Emilia made her way to the wall that was slowly changing from bare grey concrete to a mural depicting the story of the secret lives of the cats that called the city home. Tracing the whorls of dried paint with her fingertips, Emilia hummed while Mura finished laughing and began painting in earnest once more. At the ripe old age of 16, the redhead was one of the oldest that frequented the block, and was known as the best artist even if she rarely showcased her works.
“You know, Emi,” Mura began, carefully adding whiskers and highlights to the most recently rendered cats, “I have some more spaces here if you have any new faces and stories.” Mura rose a questioning eyebrow at the young girl who had been beside her, only to find empty space. Spinning around, she was just in time to see Emilia kneeling on her blanket in preparation to tell her stories. While she was young, Emilia loved every story that grew upon the bones of the shopping centre with her whole heart, and wanted nothing more than to add her own experiences, her own voice, her own take of the city that was their home. Stories were their lifeblood and the thing that brought colour to monochrome lives, and Emilia was as determined as an 8 year old could be that she would add as much as she could.
Clearing her voice, Emilia began.
“Sooty is a grey cat with a darker face and tail, black paws, and green eyes. His front left leg is a bit crooked so he walks with a bit of a limp, and his left ear has a couple of tears. He waits on street corners and in the shadows, watching for the spirits that used to live in the forest that used to be here. On corners he’ll see the tall tree spirits, hunched over, lost, and coughing smoke, and he’ll ask them, ‘what are you still doing here?’ And every time the spirit will reply, ‘I have nowhere else to go, and I am waiting.’ Then, twisted and sad, they’ll move on.” Emilia had long since closed her eyes in concentration, and in her blindness did not see Mura pick up a pencil and begin sketching long bark covered limbs holding a sombre looking cat. As Mura sketched the new addition, Emilia continued.
“When Sooty waits in shadows, he’ll see elegant water spirits, brown and grey instead of blue, sickly, and leaking oil, and again he asks, ‘what are you still doing here?’ And again they always say, ‘I have nowhere else to go, and I am waiting.’ Then, with lots of effort and a bit of anger, they move on. When Sooty tries to follow them, they fade. What they are waiting for, they never tell him, even when he yowls his loudest and makes the nasty old lady down the street throw rocks at him. Only his friend Pancake can see the spirits like he can, and she does not wonder much what they can be waiting for. Her green eyes are always watching patiently, waiting for food, for a kind hand, for the sun to shine down through the smog. Sooty’s green eyes are searching, and while he knows that whatever the spirits are waiting for will come long after he has had his last sun-nap, he would like to find out before his time. He loves chin scratches and gentle pats along his back.”
Emilia opened her eyes and grinned, satisfied with how she had told Sooty’s story. Mura grinned back, setting down her pencil and walking over to Emilia’s seated figure.
“I hope Sooty is able to find what the spirits are waiting for, and hopefully for us it turns out to be something good.” Mura ruffled Emilia’s hair, causing it to fall out of its loose ponytail, “Right now I think you should give him a chin scratch and head home, you have school tomorrow after all. Maybe when you come back next time you can bring Sooty with you and he can decide whether I did a good job painting him.”
After pushing away Mura’s hand and quickly inspecting her hands and hair for any signs of paint Mura may have left on her, Emilia stood up, rolled up her blanket, and set out of the room with a little wave of goodbye. After setting away the plates the cats had finished and quickly patting those who lingered, she headed home under a never-quite-dark sky.
Mura watched the now-empty doorway for a moment before picking up her pencil once more. Despite being so young, Emilia was one of the best at coming up with stray stories; she had been born here in this city, had breathed in the stale air every day and chosen to not suffocate. That’s what they all tried to do in these forgotten places. They tried to live.
~
Broken bones mended, scars faded, and dandelions kept pushing through cracks in the pavement. Emilia floated above a city sitting fish-eyed, distorted but still familiar. The stray cats swirled around her, collars of bright ribbons curling and drifting as they swam. The dandelions flowered and faded, blowing away on a breeze created by thousands of feet passing by. She woke up.
~
Mura showed off her finished mural a few weeks later, on a Saturday night when the city kids all tried to sneak away and meet up in their secret places. The mid-eastern shopping centre was filled with creators and inventors, and Emi dutifully held up a disgruntled Sooty up to his likeness much to the enjoyment of a doubled over Mura. Fires comprised of old construction supplies were lit and various foods toasted and burnt beyond recognition upon them. When the witching hour came, the children of the city held the same unflinching vigil that buildings and roads did, appreciating the rare quiet and the endless possibility that existed within it. They existed on their own terms and built beautiful places in defiance of the monochrome world they were given. Out of the old and forgotten they raised the new, letting the city’s decay bring forth new life. A new heartbeat rests in the bones of a giant.
It was maybe 1 am, a time when the world began to quieten down, and Emilia was once again at the abandoned block. She didn’t hate her home, far from it; her parents were kind and she always had access to food, but there was no life there. It was a house and a place to live, but it was not truly her home. She would never be told how to navigate rooftops or sewers for quicker passage there, nor would they treat stray cats like the secret keepers they were. It was amongst the strays that Emilia was sitting now, letting them climb on her and steal her warmth. Despite how hostile and scarred some of the cats could be, she always held them in high regard and treated them gently, because it was in them that she saw the spirits of all the other city children reflected. Secret-keepers, way-makers, survivors and watchers, the passive guardians of backstreets and forgotten places.
Flour and Patches were currently occupying her arms as she leaned back and looked for any signs of stars that the older kids spoke about with such awe and wonder. Kyah told her, or anyone given the chance, that she had once seen a few after scaling a skyscraper on a dare and emerging higher than the smog. Emilia had asked her parents what smog was and if she could see stars the day after, and they had spoke of something called ‘light pollution’. Seven-year-olds often didn’t know words that big, but in a world choking with waste the older children quickly taught even the youngest that pollution surrounds them all, and that one day they would be old enough to do something about it.
Shifting Flour and beginning to give the speckled white cat a scratch, Emilia sighed, alone outside the bones of a monolith on a Tuesday night. She didn’t think she was strong enough to change anything. Most of the older kids that stopped frequenting the forgotten places still fought to right the world, but there was only so much that they could do at a time. Emilia was eight, and the world seemed awfully big. For now, she would tell the stories of those that were trying to make the world better, of stars that used to watch over them but were now blind to their world, of cats and what their keen eyes could see. She would breathe new life into the forgotten spaces and hope that it would be enough to strengthen the older kids and teach the younger kids.
It was the witching hour, and Emilia walked home watched by a dozen pairs of eyes.
~
To the young of the mid-eastern city district, the abandoned shopping mall was the heart of their world and a hub of culture. To the officials of the Eastern City District Council, it was the incomplete and abandoned shopping mall project that was now taking up valuable space, and was slated for demolition so a new building could take its place.
A warning came through the grapevine, and the kids ran. It was always better to live and fight another day than fight against machines and the cold eyes of councils. But as the first plume of smoke and dust emerged as destruction began, many wondered if they had made the right choice.
The streetlights came on, flood lights were brought out to accompany them. None of the lights picked up the hidden figures that surrounded the block.
The workers turned off their machines and packed up for the night as they joined the slowing traffic. The noise of the cars drowned out the near-silent breathing that permeated the area.
The witching hour came, and it was only then in the dead of night that the watchers broke their vigil, and it ones and twos began to pick through the wreckage of their sanctuary. Silent tears helped settle the dust kicked up by feet riddled with pins and needles from staying still so long.
Kyah clenched her hands until her nails dug into her palms and drew blood as she looked at the ruined box that now only held scraps, but had once held star charts and sketch books filled with information on in the glowing lights that she had only once seen. After salvaging a few cans of paint and her toolbox of supplies, Mura sat by an empty space that had once been a room where she had created. Emilia was eight, and the world did not care for the thoughts of an eight-year-old; for once she was glad of that. Her thoughts were angry and sad, jumbled and distorted by loss, and even as tears rolled down her face in steady streams, she didn’t make a sound.
In the face of their apocalypse the children of the mid-eastern district were silent, for if they began grieving, there would be no end; they had all lost so much before they were even born.
Emilia picked her way through the rubble, and spread her blanket next to a hollow-eyed Mura. “I have a new story, if you would like to hear it.” She whispered, breaking the silence of 3 am.
Mura let out a shaky breath and put on a broken smile, “Of course I’d love to hear it Emi.”
Heads turned towards the break in the stillness, and Emilia breathed in the heavy city air.
“Bean is a short, round cat with a brown coat and yellow-green eyes. He hops across balconies looking for the brightest most comfortable patches of sunlight, and he moves all over the city looking for the perfect nap place. After many years Bean found that the best place was on the roof of a little flower shop. He loved that flower shop.” Emilia wiped the still-lingering tears from her eyes, before continuing with steel in her voice, “Not many humans loved the flower shop. So when the owner left, they broke it down and built something else. They didn’t know it was the best nap-place in the whole city, because no one cared to ask. Bean was so sad, he didn’t want to have to search again. He felt lost.”
Mura had known for a while that the cat stories Emilia came up with were usually the dark-haired girl’s way to explain the city in a new way, but hearing her speak so unwaveringly about a loss as grave as their own through the story of one of her cats, she thought that it might be even more than that. As tears finally spilled down her face, Mura let Emilia explain their world to her.
“Bean wasn’t the only cat in the city. There were many, many cats, and when they saw him so sad they showed him their sun places. Even though they weren’t as good, Bean realised no place ever would be because the flower shop had been unique. That also meant it was gone forever. That wasn’t okay, but no one cares if a cat thinks are okay or not, so he did what he could; he lived. He told other cats about the flower shop place so that he wouldn’t forget it. He found new nap-spots and slept until content in those, and then told others about those spots as well.” Emilia let out a rattling breath. “He moved on because he had to, and he lived; so will we.”
~
At 4 am when the city began readying itself for another day, the children stole out of the construction block with silent farewells. They had built something new and alive on the bones of something dead, and both had been destroyed by something else, all of it a continuous cycle of life and decay and death and life again. However, the stories they had told across the city could not be destroyed in a way that mattered, and their stories filled the streets and spilled into the forgotten places.
You are alive, they whispered, you are here, and will always be here, until you are not, just as it has always been. The dead will feed life into something new, which will decay and in turn feed something else, something stronger, a wonder yet to be seen.
You are alive.