XI

There is a city that is both the first city and the last. It is a city of both beginning and end, of entry and exit, of hope and dismay.

Even in its perpetual darkness, each morning one observes the glistening walls of it’s white-washed temples. Yet before even noon, its hallowed grounds lay in sordid decay, desecrated by its capricious weather. For each day, billowing clouds materialize without warning and soggy it’s walls with a warm, acrid rain- sometimes a sprinkle, sometimes a downpour.

It’s inhabitants tolerate these showers with barely a raised eye. For it is not the rain they fear, but the thunder. The roar of thunder strikes fear in heart of all its denizens. I have known men who have experienced thousands of these thunders, who have endured that cacophonous rumble- and yet still they dread it, and it cannot be ignored. The rapturous thunder stings, chokes, threatens, kills. It is the thunder, above all else, that motivates its inhabitants to leave.

To live in this city is to hope to leave it. Yet to my eye it seemed that only the youngest of its inhabitants ever manage to do so, an effort that requires many months of arduous training. Exiting its gates for the first time, a traveler’s face is filled with happy defiance, standing tall as loved ones outside the city heap on adoring praise. To leave this city is sublime. It is a moment of celebration, of achievement, of possibility. The world is their oyster, and newfound freedom beckons them to explore the vast realm of cities that lie far beyond its wretched walls.

The exuberance of its former denizens stands in stark contrast to the aged and weary travelers who enter the city, returning to a place they vowed to never see again. The agony of one’s return is heightened by shame; embarrassment rules the day. Their miserable eyes shed tears in the knowledge that they must once again endure its shame and that a lifetime of freedom is slipping away. For most, it is the last city they shall ever see.

That is all I wish to say about Diperia. Its memory fades with time, and I do not wish to ever visit it again, even in my mind.