The City On The Sea

I like to watch the water. It enraptures me, the roiling depths of the sea, the swirling currents, the raw power of the tides...

The sunset on the horizon, the rippling reflection of fire... You have not known beauty until you've seen, really seen, I mean, the endless seas.

One evening as I watched the horizon, I saw it. For just a moment, right as the sun sank beneath the waves- a city. For just an instant, before it's gone, and all that remained was a burning afterimage of great towers and palaces, minarets upon a vast shore....

Had I imagined it? I thought I must. But I saw it again the next night, and the next. Every evening at the same time, in that instant right before the sun vanishes. Within that flash of green... the City.

It weighed on my mind such that I began to dream of it each night; its rise from the sea eons past, its slow growth and discovery in what must surely have been man's prehistory. While Ancient Uruk was still only an aspirational gleam in our eyes, the City on the Sea thrived.

It was a paradise, a utopia such as Sir Thomas Moore first wrote of. Its people wanted for nothing, and had no need of contact with the world outside.

I began to feel, after countless nights of dreaming, that I must find my way there. That feeling, that need, began to overpower me, until at last I resolved to try.

In the dead of night, I made my way down to the harbor and made off with a neighbor's boat; a small thing, maybe 12 feet long, with a single sail. Operating the craft was no challenge, having grown up as I did on the seaside, and in no time I was off to find the horizon.

Many long days I sailed out to the West, to no avail. I ran out of food before long, and water soon after. Though the seas remained calm, and the wind was at my back, I felt as if I were sitting still. But each night, I had the vision of the city on the horizon to feed me, to slake my thirst, and I kept going.

Long after I had lost track of the days, it happened. The wind picked up, the water became choppy, and a storm blew in. I fought to keep my boat afloat, but... a storm at sea is not a trivial thing. As I went down, my last thoughts were of regret; I would never now find what I looked for. I would be just another victim of the sea.

Until I awoke, facedown on what I took to be sand. As I pressed my hands down, lifting myself up, I felt a stinging sensation. I lay on a wide sandy beach, yes, but that sand seemed made of glass, and my bare skin where it touched the ground now bled. I struggled to my knees and took in my surroundings.

To my left, the sea. Still rough, but seemed to be at low tide. In front of me, a seemingly endless beach of glass. The sky shone a sickly grey-green, and on my right... the towers and palaces I'd grown so accustomed to seeing only as an afterimage.

After so much time, I was almost there! I tried to stand, but my legs gave out and I began to notice just how much blood I'd lost. But it couldn't end here, it mustn't.

With a pained groan I forced myself up and tried to walk. I could manage a slow shamble. Time passed, and I grew weaker. By the time I saw the gate, I was reduced to a crawl. My vision grew dark around the edges, but I couldn't stop, not this close to my goal.

A blood-smeared hand against the stone. A last push. And miraculously, the door opened. I fell inward, feeling the sharp bite of the sandy street again.

I could not rise. My vision was nearly gone, but my final sight, the last image I would take to my grave... was the reality of the city I had seen so often; a desolate ruin long emptied of any living beings.