Cars going. Cars coming. Cars whizzing through the night, in endless streams, forming a line of red leading inwards, a line of white leading outwards. On the side of a four lane road, a house with three towers and silver roof, fully alit, shining like an ufo that fell from the sky. The door, wide open. But no one there, at the door, in the rooms behind the countless windows. A life size still life.
In town, mazes of metal, of stone. Two yellow buses crossing on a bridge, in the very moment the traffic light underneath them turns green. Three trees on the left side, remnants of the time before asphalt. Prisoners of the city, they are. There is no way out for them, not to the left, not to the right. So they stand. Reaching for the sky with their black arms.
At the train station, a sign saying Agra. As if it was close. As if it wasn't two continents away. Between a media maxistore and a company called clockhouse: a plastic half moon, dangling in the air, accompanied by pink and green stars.
At a crossing, a woman in a long white coat. On the other side of the street, a guy in an orange jacket. Maybe their eyes will meet, for a moment, while they cross to the other side. Maybe we all met, somewhere, in between streets.
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i wrote this story 3 or 4 years ago, in December. it was up in the j1m-group-blog for a while: http://just1m.blogspot.com/
while driving home yesterday, and passing dangling stars and moons, i thought of it again.
A wow: "A life size still life."
Wow #2, the whole tree-thing in para 2.
And the resolution, the question of place and time.
Really, really nice, Dorothee.
This is a great piece, Dorothee. I really like the closing.
Susan, Sam: thanks for the feedback and the thoughts!
this also makes me think: it's one of the great virtues of fictionaut, that it offers a place for works that date back a bit.
nice metaphysical snapshot!
this slow, deliberate pacing never grows tired for me. lovely.
hi Michael, hi Mel!
thanks for your reflections -
this is so interesting: your comments now made me go to the other rather metaphysical and slow-paced snapshot i have up in fictionaut: "Sliver" -- and it almost feels, "City Crossing" is like a connecting & at the same time counterparting piece.
here's the direct link to Sliver:
http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/dorothee-lang/sliver
and here, the line that leads from Sliver to the City Crossing: "And she kept dreaming of huge cities filled with streets filled with houses filled with colors and shadows."
seen from that point, the shadows.. are the trees.
i LOVE this Dorothee! faving it right now.
Very strong sense of movement in the prose, even in describing the static image. Vivid, concrete. Nice.
I like this one a lot. Especially the last line. (getting a chance to start looking at some older stuff).