Chloë Joan López
chlo'jo'lo'
Sewer City Nostalgia

Tonight I prepare to return to Sewer City for the third time. Sewer City is a very terrifying place for a water elemental. It's full of air and fire and long dead gadgets. And humans! It makes me dizzy just to think about it: all those humans eating breathing sweating fucking spending hoarding and the sylphs keeping them apart with their swords and the salamanders goading them into conflict... I admit that I am ultimately a passive creature. And of course to me the skyline looks like a great gadget graveyard, maybe the husked bodies of Ootetsu stood on end.

But something more important is happening. It was Tuesday was it? Yes, Tuesday. I awoke from some urgent dream message from Seamother, but I couldn't remember what it might be. I wandered out into the city square, watched them scrape some poor smear of a kid off the asphalt. I touched the stain and then the stain was on my fingertips. It's still there. But more importantly, when I turned away to leave, I found myself facing a tree. The tree had braided stems, and its multiplicity reminded me of the Seven-Fold Tree, though of course far less majestic and marvellous. The image of the Seven-Fold Tree has been reappearing in my mind so often lately, and I was startled to be reminded now in real life. This place of my birth wants something from me.

So now it all comes down to this. I am going to Sewer City to see off my Twin as she departs to water a faraway desert. I suspect I'll have to do something similar myself, sooner or later. The memories have been seeping into my consciousness, the nonsensical memory of being born under that tree in the desert. What does it mean?

On Tuesday, this other, less splendid tree began weeping in my hand as I stood there. It felt so pathetic and useless. I wished I could take it and transplant it on my Boulevard, so that it wouldn't have to live between buildings, behind corners. But it's not my tree, not one of my trees, not the right kind of tree. I'll come visit it tomorrow, though, before I leave.

Oh there's so much to tell. Maybe tomorrow.