Listen closely, for I am not merely the ground you tread upon or the walls that surround you; I am the City, that entity of vast memory and eyes that never close. I see you all, not by miracle, but through the relentless lenses of security cameras – those glass pupils that store your footsteps within the servers of oblivion. I observe you through open windows, from which the steam of morning coffee escapes alongside the echo of shared solitudes.
My memory is an ancient thing, heavy as the granite of my foundations. I remember, with a haunting clarity, the time when my back was traversed by the rhythmic trot of horses, when the pace of life was dictated by the breath of animals. I saw the glory of paper newspapers, snapped open on street corners, where news had the weight of ink and the span of an entire afternoon to be read. Today, what I feel coursing through my entrails is the tingling of fibre optics – those invisible nerves that transport life in electrical impulses, far too swift for the heart to follow.
And the sound you hear? That noise of engines, the constant roar that rises from the avenues and makes the windowpanes vibrate… that is my heartbeat. It is the frenetic pulse of modernity, an arrhythmia of steel and rubber proving that I, the City, never rest, even when exhaustion consumes me.
But I also see, with a hint of bitterness, this glow of screens illuminating your faces at bus stops and on narrow pavements. It is a new form of blindness, ladies and gentlemen. It is a light that deceives. People walk hypnotised by this blue light, immersed in worlds of glass, yet they do not see those passing beside them. They bump shoulder to shoulder, but their eyes are elsewhere, lost in a brightness that obfuscates reality. They gaze at the light, but have lost the ability to see the world around them.
And I, the City, remain here: vigilant, plugged in, and eternal.
Mistaken are those who think that life is summed up by what shines on screens or what is celebrated with the digital applause of a thousand likes. Those are merely jack-o'-lanterns, fireworks that extinguish before leaving a trace. The stories that truly matter, those that make my concrete foundations vibrate, are the ones that happen in silence. They are the dramas and glories that unfold in the intervals, in those blind spots where my cameras do not reach and where no one remembers to raise a phone to film. True life, ladies and gentlemen, needs no audience; it suffices in its own breath, in the shadow of a stolen kiss or the tear that falls without witnesses.
For true love, that which still makes sense in this silicon jungle, is a stubbornly analogue thing. It is not made of algorithms or filters that hide the wrinkles of the soul. Love made of flesh and blood wears out with touch, leaves marks on the fingers and scars on the chest; it is something felt in the texture of skin and the warmth of breath. And, unlike those machines that store everything, love has no undo button. In love, one cannot cancel what was said, nor erase what was lived. Once the heart is cast, there is no turning back, and it is this irreversibility that grants it its tragic and beautiful dignity.
There still exist, in my deepest entrails, places that the internet has forgotten. Corners where the signal does not reach, dusty workshops where time seems to have stagnated and where the smell of oil and metal is more real than any high-definition image. They are refuges of shadow, sanctuaries of craftsmanship that the network ignores because it does not know how to sell them.
And, amidst these people who walk bowed over the blue light, there are different beings. There are people made of light and speed, creatures that seem to run faster than fibre optics themselves. They are folk who do not let themselves be trapped by the frames of screens; they pass through me like comets, leaving a trail of energy that the cameras can barely capture. They are the personification of pure movement, living proof that life, when it chooses, can still be faster and brighter than any processor.
Therefore, I ask you a favour before we take the first step: adjust your focus. Clear your eyes of that digital mist that clouds your sight and prepare yourselves to see beyond what is polished and perfect. To understand what is about to happen in these streets, you must accept the grain of the film. Life – the real kind – does not come in high-definition; it is grainy, sometimes out of focus, and has that grime on the hands of those who are not afraid to touch the matter of the world. One must have patience for the delay of real things, for the time bread takes to bake and for the slowness with which a heartache dissolves. Here, nothing is resolved with a click; everything is conquered with sweat and with waiting.
Listen well to what I tell you, for I, the City, shall tell you this story only once. There will be no repeats, no files saved to watch later. I shall narrate it now, with all the strength of my lungs of smoke and steel, before the next skyscraper rises to block the horizon or the next software update comes to muddle memories and erase the vestiges of what we were. Progress is a hungry beast that devours yesterday to feed tomorrow, and my streets shed their skin faster than a snake in the sun.
Pay attention. What I am about to show you is the pulsing of human hearts amidst the coldness of circuits. It is the exact moment where light and shadow cross before the system reboots.
The asphalt curtain is about to rise. Are you ready?