The Perfect City

It was the perfect city. It was built on top of a river and several old fashioned iron bridges stretched over it, connecting the city to itself, and casting dark shadows onto the sparkling water. The city was perfect at any time of year. In summer, the clouds parted and warm light flooded through the city’s windows. In fall, the tree lined streets were engulfed with blankets of leaves. In winter, icicles hung from the magnificent bridges and children skated on the ice below them. And in the spring, in the rain, the city couldn’t have been more beautiful. But the city wasn’t only nice to look at, it was also beautifully and practically designed. Tall, carefully crafted buildings lined the streets of the town. The builders of the city had planned the streets so there would be no traffic, and there never was. Enormous, well kept gardens and parks were placed every couple of blocks. The produce was always fresh. The factories were always clean and pollution free. There was never a shortage of jobs. In fact, each person who moved to the perfect city was able to obtain their dream job, as well as their dream house. Street vendors advertised tasty, exotic foods and couples walked along the banks of the river, while their children played in its waters. If you had seen a postcard of that place at any time of year, it would have taken your breath away. You would have exclaimed how you wished you could go there.

Many people did. Hundreds of people moved to the perfect city each year and, more often than not, they took the train, becasue the train system was excellent and affordable. As they rode the steel tracks into their new home, they noticed dozens of people walking away from the city along the sides of the highway. These travelers were clad in several layers of coats. All of the men had beards, and they carried their belongings in plastic bags or pushed them in old shopping carts. “Odd,” they remarked to one another. The city train station was an old building that had been restored and as the passengers pulled into the train station they were shocked to see a man graffiting a neighboring train car. He tagged his initials on the side of the car and he ran. He was followed almost immediately by a man with a bucket and a sponge who cleaned off the graffiti, leaving no trace of the markings. The passengers were unnerved to see someone graffiting their perfect city, but they were relieved to know that the city had the proper maintenance to keep it clean. When they asked the man if this occurred frequently, he stated that he wasn’t sure. He was new here.

From the train station it was a short walk to the downtown and the heart of the city. The buildings were tall and cast long shadows in the afternoon light. The streets were wide and filled with expensive cars. One thing was odd though: the homeless wandered the sidewalks. The entire street was clean except for them. They crouched in the shade of buildings, and dug through dumpsters in alleyways, and held signs at street corners hoping that someone would drop a few spare coins into their hands. The newcomers were shocked. They hadn’t seen anything like this in the postcards.

As they explored their new home they became more and more shocked. Upon visiting the library, an enormous building with a magnificent spiral staircase that climbed through four stories of books, they saw that the aisles were deserted. An occasional odd soul who was new to the city would wander them, but the vast majority of library patrons sat at computers playing games of solitaire, or watching music videos. Enormous packs full of canned food leaned against the sides of their seats. They leaned back in their seats and seemed unaware of the fact that they were surrounded by life transformational knowledge.

There was no shortage of activities in this city. Every night there were meetings and dances and concerts all across town. At a public swing dance, newcomers to the town were shocked to realize that though they had the perfect venue, with a high sloped ceiling and shining hardwood floors, and though the music was excellent and perfect for dancing, nobody seemed to enjoy themselves. They danced alone, and they looked around the room shyly and waited for someone to come to them and ask to dance. No one ever did. The only people who danced with partners were couples and they looked around at all of the single dancers with envy, wishing that they could have the freedom to dance with whomever they pleased. The newcomers to the city left these dances early, frustrated and confused. What was the point of a social dance if you didn’t actually dance with anyone?

Over time, these newcomers grew accustomed to the bums that wandered the streets. They settled into their new jobs and new houses and they told themselves that a city with the funding and activism of this one could easily overcome a simple problem of homelessness. After all, hadn’t they seen bums migrating from the city in masses? They settled into their new lives, and they stuck with the people who had migrated to the city with them, and they kept the city economically stable and clean. They spent a lot of time cleaning up after the homeless, but they never complained, and they patiently awaited the day that the last of them would leave town and their city would be truly perfect at last.

But as time passed, things changed. The newcomers grew used to the city's elegant architecture. They became accustomed to the beautiful parks. They gradually stopped looking up and stopped noticing what was around them. Slowly, like slipping into a sleep, they stopped seeing the beauty that had drawn them here in the first place.

“What was so perfect about this city anyway?”

“All we ever do is clean up after the homeless.”

“Weren't we told that this would be the end of our troubles?” They grew discouraged and disillusioned. Work lost its appeal. So what if they had great, high paying jobs? They had been promised that by moving here all of their troubles would disappear. There were still troubles. Some started slacking at their jobs and some quit outright. Couples cheated on each other in the hopes of finding fulfillment in other partners. Others went on wild spending sprees, buying new houses and new cars, all to provide themselves with happiness and perfection that they had been promised.

When they found that they were still unhappy, they changed their images of perfection. They moved into campers and vans. Some skipped that step entirely and moved directly to the street, sleeping in parks and under buildings. The problem was society, they told themselves. If they lived outside of the rat race then they would find the perfection they had been promised. Most of them developed addictions to drugs or alcohol or other mind-freeing substances.

And to be fair, It wasn’t a hard life. The most difficult thing they encountered was a bad night of weather. All that one needed to survive could be obtained by begging on the side of the road. The newcomers who continued to flock to the city always had some extra cash and were always willing to spare it, to help get the bums back on their feet, to help make the perfect city more perfect.

As they grew accustomed to life on the street they sank further into madness. They began to steal, not because they needed to, but because there was pleasure to be found in doing so. They became increasingly violent. Addictions consumed their lives. The things that had once cooled the fires of emptiness inside of them no longer seemed to have any effect. They had to go to further and further lengths to get a high of any kind. Some continued down that road until it killed them. Others lost their minds, and spent the rest of their days wandering the streets, talking to themselves. But others were able to remember that things had not always been this way. Hadn’t there been a time where there was more to life? It seemed so far away, but surely it had happened long ago, when they lived far away from here, far away from this perfect city.

Many of them left the city then, walking on the side of the highway that ran out of town. They walked on the right side of the street. Cars never left the city, they only entered. Those who left, left walking. As newcomers passed them they looked out their glass windows and wondered. As they moved farther and farther from the city the army of homeless, unshowered bums dissipated, each of them going their own way. Some went into the unknown. Others went home. But no matter where they went, no place seemed to be as perfect as the city that they had left. They had brought the city with them.

Some, finding that they missed their city, returned to it, determined to work their way back to the top, to make the city perfect. And of course, they were never able to do so . But others adjusted to life outside of the city. They killed their desire for perfection. They grew accustomed to the scattered beauties and pains of ordinary life. They realized that, outside of the perfect city, they couldn’t afford to live for themselves. So they lived for others instead. And as time passed, as they adjusted to their new lives, they found that they were content.

Occassionaly, a young restless soul would catch a glimpse of the perfect city in a postcard or a poster and he would determine to move there, to cheat the world of its imperfection. The perfect city looks different to each person. No two people could look at it and see the same thing. And because of this, there was never any use in trying to tell them: The journey was the only thing that could do that. If they were determined to go, then the only thing to do was to let them go and to hope that they would return home.