This evening’s flash fiction piece. I rather like the first and last lines, and how the piece has a sense of balance to it. As before, comments are appreciated.<\/p>\n
The city sank into the autumn of its life. Glory had passed it by, a phase from its youth, and now it had settled into middle-aged expansion, growing fat and weary. Each day saw new construction, a new theft from the land around it as the city grew and grew. But as it grew, it turned inwards, eyes once focused upon distant shores now locked firmly to the gossip of the markets, and the sordid happenings in squalid apartments.<\/p>\n
\tAs the city turned away from the world, so too did the world turn away from the city. Trading vessels from other ports no longer called, overland traders found their way to distant markets, and even farmers began to find doing business with the city dull and unsatisfying. They wondered why this was so, and could find no reason for it that sprung instantly to mind, and so the farmers, being of stolid stock, returned to their tasks and their seasons.<\/p>\n
\tLife continued on, and the leaves fell from the autumnal trees, leaving the city cold and unprotected from the fierce north wind. Fat, wealthy, and unprotected, the city was swept aside and into the winter of its existence by a barbarian tribe. The inferno lit the sky for many nights, a brilliant funeral pyre for a city and a people now dead or gone. And so the city hibernated through the winter, like so many other creatures, hoping to wake in the spring.<\/p>\n
\tUnlike others, it did not find relief with the coming of spring. The city slumbered on, and greenery arose, sheltering the ruins from the harsh rays of the sun. Time passed, and many winters turned to spring, and the city had become a forest, with only piles of rubble to remember where there had been buildings. To those now alive, the city had become a mythical place of great wealth and long forgotten stories, magnified beyond its former status by the fog of lost knowledge.<\/p>\n
\tAnother age rolled by, and still the city slumbered on. But this was an age of great importance, for the world had changed around the sleeping city, and the devastation that had come to it came to many of its fellows. People fled from their ancestral homes, and struck out into the wild to find a new place to live, and at the end of this age, the city shook away the tendrils of long held sleep, and was born again, young and vibrant.<\/p>\n
\tIt was a city in spring, a city growing into the fullness of its life, and people uncovered more and more of the old city that lay beneath the ground, and used those stones and those tiles to build a new city. This new city did not remember the old, for too much time had passed, but it honoured its ancestor even so, built along the same lines and using the same stone. And so the city grew and grew, and moved from the urgency of spring into the full life of summer.<\/p>\n
\tIn summer the city flourished, and trade spread out from it like runners from a plant, placing many new seeds across the land. Throwing doors wide in welcome, the city enjoyed the passage of many foreigners and luxurious goods, and became renowned for the pageantry and cheer of its citizens. But seasons turn, whether wished for or not, and the city sank into the autumn of its life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This evening’s flash fiction piece. I rather like the first and last lines, and how the piece has a sense of balance to it. As before, comments are appreciated. The city sank into the autumn of its life. Glory had passed it by, a phase from its youth, and now it had settled into middle-aged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[21,22],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-1F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":415,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":0},"title":"The Village","date":"January 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off. The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=221","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":1},"title":"Writer's Carnival: City of Sadness","date":"August 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This particular story was inspired by a friend of mine, and is as much poetry as prose. Or at least tries to have tendencies in that direction. It's also rather short. I do hope you enjoy it. It's also the first of my three entries into the Writer's Carnival. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=234","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":2},"title":"Writer's Carnival","date":"August 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome all to the Writer's Carnival. We've got eight stories for you to read today, excellent pieces of one and all. I'd like to thank all of the authors who participated, and made this such a success. I'd especially like to mention John Wiswell, and send my best wishes to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":101,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=101","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":3},"title":"The Last Farmer","date":"April 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My longest piece of flash fiction yet, this one continues my happy theme of recent days. I'm not sure about the ending. I kept feeling like I should write another paragraph, but at the same time, the current spot is where I wanted to end it. I'm not sure which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":213,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=213","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":4},"title":"City of my Life","date":"August 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I walked through the city of my life, and I stopped in at the convenience store. A few moment's search found me the drugs that I wanted, and I was off again. I flew like a kite above the urban landscape, and looked down at the parks that contained my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":187,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=187","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":5},"title":"Writer's Carnival, Week #1","date":"May 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome all to the initial edition of the Writer's Carnival. We've got 14 stories for you to read today, excellent pieces of flash fiction one and all. I'll be linking each in the order they were entered, as well as providing a brief introduction and excerpt. I'd like to thank\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}