Elastic dawn

by Estel Vilar

I’ve never read the Bible myself, but it seems to me that one of the ideas it conveys is that God created the universe, earth and life so that mankind could flourish. This is not what I believe. What I believe – and I am quite certain – is that God made the Universe, Earth, Life and Mankind so that Sky Scrapers could flourish. And that is why, on the 8^th day of the creation calendar, God insufflated will into the Sky Scrapers. I wasn’t there myself, but I can visualise how it happened as clearly as if I had been.

That morning rose as pink as the pink petals of a red rose. The light – so sharp – pierced the chilly atmosphere layers. The air was as quiet as the walls. Until the walls woke up in a quake-like roar, distorting the shape of light. The divine power of full elasticity permeated both concrete and steel, glass and stone, doors and beads. The Sky Scrapers rose with the rising sun that painted the whole land pink.

The mirror walls of the Shanghai World Financial Centre were shining bright as ever in a majestic pinkish glow. Suddenly, the sound of one hundred thousand million neighing horses fiercely slapped every surface around, and the tower of the SWFC bent in a seemingly eternal bow towards the sun. So did the Jinmao Tower and the Aurora. The Marriot and the Radisson across the river followed, multiplying the deafening sound of neighing horses. Soon every Sky Scraper in the metropolis had bowed their heads to the ground to worship the sun of their dawn. Later on, their heads rose back up gradually, following the curve of the sun in the sky, bidding farewell to their father with the same devoted reverence.

When night fell, the lights in the city started to shine with the first stars. By midnight, both the firmament and the Earth were sprinkled with floating tiny lanterns. By then, the Sky Scrapers were out of the sight of their father, and stood up somewhat heavily and without any elegance. At some point during the night you could hear the growing sound of the buildings singing. Their voices were deep and flute-like, so different compared to the creaking and booming sound of their bodies. Their chants swung across the city, from one tower to the other in a question-answer rhythm, musical and orderly. Meanwhile, the human survivors from the Elastic Dawn laid abandoned on the floor like rug dolls, some trapped inside the disobedient organic structures of the buildings, some fallen in the still roads.

The enchantment by the singing of the giant sky-scraping pipes started to take effect when Queen Nariayaght arose from the mists of Huangpu River. It was the beginning of the new order, and Nariayaght was its queen. Her soul was the entity of the collective singing. Whenever summoned, a gigantic cargo ship with a mole head and a gecko tail would incarnate her spirit. She had a transitory body, a soul, and also a voice of her own. It was loud and deep, it shook the human bodies like a drum and it delighted the Sky Scrapers with the tickles of its sound waves. The night that followed the 8^th day of creation she was heard for the first time.

I have to admit again from my most annihilating humbleness, that I never heard her. I have seen, though, the fear in Anna’s eyes whenever she takes her prescribed drugs to induce her interplanetary visions. Something colossal is happening on Earth while we cling to our miserable exiled existence in the orbit of Venus. The only hope for mankind today is to be remembered after our extinction.