Scene 0546

*"Most of us grew up in the Outskirts. The place where everything just seemed to end up in, spilling over or through cracks, collected from the excesses of everywhere else. Like some gutter for the higher places. The Cities. We didn't mind. These dregs were the first glimpse of the rest of the world for many of us. And it was home. As far as could be seen, the Projects yawned away into the distance, tall stone buildings of small flats boxed together, seemed to bend over leaning across the sky perhaps hundreds or thousands of feet up in the air. There was not much else of the world to be seen. Everything faced each other. Only from the rooftops could we see the rest of the world like standing atop the tallest tree in a tight forest, and God what a beautiful sight that was. Far in the horizon the outlines of the Cities, glinting red light from the last of the sun against glass, then craggy old mountains to the east so ancient and tall, and plains of nothingness beyond and all to the north. I think it was a beauty that came from the perfect balance of all things, heaven and earth and man and God and rich and poor. Perhaps good and evil. In a pure construct of equilibrium. Nothing moved. And with that perfection in your eyes you'd learn the beauty of our home. Here in the Outskirts. The colors of everything and the way the damp shone in the evening light and the pure manlike abstraction of it all. No one knows when men first came here. Or who laid the first stone, or why. We are just here, existing in this place. Some of us will leave, some of us will die here knowing nothing else. There are stories of some old prospector who found water in this place, a hundred thousand years ago, who built the first house and store and school. People followed him, making a trail from where they used to be before this. People always follow other people. But no one cares to know more than this. Rich histories are only for the rich. We just know it will be here a million years later or until there is no earth or sky or God."*

### II.

*"Most of us grew up in the Outskirts. The place where everything just seemed to end up in, spilling over or through cracks, collected from the excesses of everywhere else. Like some gutter for the higher places. The Cities. We didn't mind. These dregs were the first glimpse of the rest of the world for many of us. And it was home. As far as could be seen, the Projects yawned away into the distance, tall stone buildings of small flats boxed together, seemed to bend over leaning across the sky perhaps hundreds or thousands of feet up in the air. There was not much else of the world to be seen. Everything faced each other. Only from the rooftops could we see the rest of the world like standing atop the tallest tree in a tight forest, and God what a beautiful sight that was. Far in the horizon the outlines of the Cities, glinting red light from the last of the sun against glass, then craggy old mountains to the east so ancient and tall, and plains of nothingness beyond and all to the north. I think it was a beauty that came from the perfect balance of all things, heaven and earth and man and God and rich and poor. Perhaps good and evil. In a pure construct of equilibrium. Nothing moved. And with that perfection in your eyes you'd learn the beauty of our home. Here in the Outskirts. The colors of everything and the way the damp shone in the evening light and the pure manlike abstraction of it all."*