When the World Burns

The city’s architecture was pure imagination incarnate:
sweeping swaths of concrete and glass,
brick buildings that appeared to meld perfectly with the sky,
steel columns that twisted as if they were made of taffy.
The edifices had existed for many years,
built with strong foundations and excellent engineering.
Men and women passed by them,
strolled underneath them everyday.
Every now and again, eyes would gaze upward
but then quickly down as the sun glared off the building surfaces.
Amidst all the people going to and fro
there was a girl.
A girl who returned to the city
day after day
and sat:
one day on that corner,
another day across the street,
wherever she could watch;
observe.
Sometimes she would sketch the various buildings,
other times she would write about them,
and sometimes she would simply look at them.
Often she became restless;
she would stand up and walk toward the face of a building
and touch its smooth glass,
or rub her fingers along rough brick,
or rest against the cool steel and sigh.
Perhaps she resented the fact
that the buildings would continue to exist
without her admiration.
The girl became a woman,
but still she returned daily to her place among the city’s monoliths,
though the time she was able to spend was much shorter as each day passed.
The day finally came when the woman did not appear.
People made their way around the city as usual,
but few, if any, noticed the absence of the city’s silent observer.
That evening, as the sun set,
the intense light of the dying star lit up the glass of the buildings
and burned the city’s undervalued creations,
blinding anyone who dared to gaze up at them.