PLACE: CITY OF OVER 1,000,000
Birds dwell only in parks. Black streets rumble with noises and hazes of exhaust fumes; steel-spike-heels clatter on sandpaper pavements. Apartments vibrate to drum-thunders of people walking overhead, running waters through hidden veins in walls, tormented babys' cries behind stairs, dogs barking endlessly.
Nature cannot live in cities. Trapped among gray monoliths of steel and glass, trees strain for light and dogs search in vain for bushes, then fruitlessly scratch the sidewalk in solemn memory of dirt which they seldom feel beneath their blistered paws.
Sounds of sizzling meat frying in old grease are more common than the green-sound of water toddling over stones, or the dawn-splash of trout catching fly breakfasts.
Black-clothed old women frown fearfully at lurking corner hoods, and patiently skirt reeking cans overflowing with vomit-colored garbage. Stark angles hack subtle curves of people, and minds become straightened and cornered in confines of cheap cubicles. Staring sadly from dust-brown windows, bewildered girls have sighs of envy at older children shouting at stickball. Individuals vanish, leaving faceless hordes---pressed sweating against each other, churning---oblivious to subway rattle, horn blare, conversation gabble, and the chopchopchop of helicopters whipping air to sound-froth.
Beautiful women become posters. Meditative young men become beatniks.
The city brutalizes people who must exist in it, and it leaves contorted shells of nerves pulsing, waiting to scream. The city seethes with dirt and fear, noises and foulness, jostle and bustle and rush, often more powerful than pathetic squashed individuals who must try to survive in it.