Impero

In the east, there lies a city so grand as to be considered one of the unofficial capitals of our world. This is the city of Impero. Being held in such esteem, it is frequently visited by others wishing to glimpse its glory. It is such an attraction that at any time, one out of seven people you see in the city are simply visitors from other lands. If every visitor in a year decided to take up residence in the city, its population would increase six fold.
Now, before I can tell you of what Impero looks like, I must tell you something of great import: very few know this city. I see that this conflict of information confuses you. Allow me to clarify my point. Most, if not all, people who live in our cultured world know of Impero. A majority of those have seen it in a film or new broadcast. Many of them have even visited it. But they do not know the city. Even many who live in it do not have this knowledge anymore, having grown so accustom to it.
The problem that is had is one of perspectives. The masses know it through the lenses of videographers, which show only the physical nature of the city. Visitors make the mistake of looking for the city in the wrong places. They scan the sky for it, but to no avail. Those who have lived in the city for any meaningful length of time have adopted the local affectation of brisk directness. They are linear in thought, speech, and action, and as they quickly move through the city their gazes are fixed ahead. The city is then lost in the periphery, to be noticed only by the subconscious. It is ignored on the simple basis of familiarity.
However, those who come in the right state of mind will find that they have a whole world to explore, for a time. They know what makes Impero give up its secrets. They move at a relaxed pace, carefully looking about at the sights around them. They take in the rising buildings as the tourists do and follow the forward flow of life of the residents, but they are not exclusive in their gazes, nor are they rigid in their paths. They take in what is around them as well as what is above. They follow the grid of the city, but realize that it is a grid, not a line, and they move between streams of traffic to see more.
What do they see? What makes Impero one of the grandest of our world? It is not easy to tell you in words. They are limited in that I can only use them to show you on piece at a time, and have no way of combining them to show you the truth of the city. The Business District is more than towering buildings rising to touch the heavens, with streets filled with men and women in suits rushing to and from Residential every morning and evening. The pillars lining the streets are not what make the Financial District special. Retail is not simply flashing advertisement screens and people wandering through stores wishing they made enough to purchase the extravagant objects of their desires before crossing the street to buy what they need. Residential can never be understood with any description of the concrete rectangles that rise from the ground, lined with windows, surrounded by the smaller old-style homes of the wealthy. It may be the most famous part, but the Artisan District is not in any way summed up by the sculpture in its center, the eye whose iris is a globe that turns in time our world. Butterfly Stadium, officially known as the Entertainment District, cannot be captured by televised games. The underground Transport District is nearly a city in and of itself, as each hub is divided into sub-districts mirroring those above, connected to each other and every part of the city with the trains. And of course, the majesty of the Governmental District can never hope to be caught by words; and those lucky few that have entered it know that there is no match for this place of checkered marble sidewalks, golden obelisks that serve as lights, and of course the new great pyramid of the Governor’s Building.
These places, they cannot be described by my words anymore than they can be by films. Words may paint a picture, but it is insufficient. Video may take a moment of time and share it with the world, but it suffers from linearity. To truly know Impero, you must be in it, be surrounded by it, have it moving about you, embracing you, pushing against you and into you. One day, my son, when you are older, I know you will experience the city for yourself. But remember one final thing: as I said before, you can enjoy the city for a time. No one can know it his or her entire life. That is beyond our abilities. We become too accustomed to it, even in small doses over time. Eventually the city will be lost to you. Enjoy it while you can, as I did.