The day’s shift has ended and so Caspar walks with Jareth across the transfer platform from one set of elevated public transport tracks to its parallel neighbor. He works with Jareth—in the bowels of a monster tower. Even here—far from his work-room—he can hear the language engines converting coherent speech into encrypted noise: his job, like Jareth’s job, is to protect corporate communications Jareth—a disgruntled native of this city—speaks to Caspar now. Jareth has decided that he and Caspar are to be something more than strangers. Friends? Compatriots? Collaborators in some arcane scheme that may remain unfixed in Caspar’s mind forever? Caspar exists in a kind of liminal state: born elsewhere, he lives here. He has work fit for a foreigner. He has friends—some as foreign as himself and some (a few) as local as the strange, eyeless fish that dwell in the murky shadow-depths of the lake. The fish, like the city’s native residents, are fit for life here; but they lack certain peculiar skills now necessary in a more global context. He shares a train-ride from work with Jareth. They live within cramped city blocks of one another. Now, a twinge of vertigo stabs at him; and as the transfer platform vibrates with the passage of a train, Caspar finds himself grasping at the guard rail. His hand misses and his fingers curl around Jareth’s arm, their tips feeling out (by accident?) the rhythm of Jareth’s pulse. Jareth has been speaking, and if he notices Caspar’s gesture, he doesn’t let on. Jareth likes it here; he makes use of the transfer platform to vent frustrations, to speak, and on occasion, to smoke. He speaks now, and Caspar—as always—listens in silence. “This City is more like a hive than anything else,” Jareth says. “We're caste creatures. Language Miners, Bankers and Businessmen belong to different castes, which is why no businessman will ever talk to you, or suggest a night of drinking and karaoke. No banker will ever invite you onto his yacht, or even reveal that his portfolio contains anything more than the vaguest stocks. “You’re a foreigner and I’m an expatriate. In City-logic these are the same things: a little bit too human. I’m an expatriate, not because my home is elsewhere, but because I’ve left here for a time. I know how outsiders think, even if I can’t actually think like one. I’ll leave again—maybe for Budapest or Bratislava—but in the meantime, I’m here: foreign in my own city. The Language Mines are the only places I can make a living...” Talk of bankers and businessmen always unnerves Caspar. He knows what buildings loom on either side of the elevated tracks here. He can see the birthing labs, where businessmen and account executives are decanted from amniotic tanks and kept like veal-calves in maturation cages, their brains stimulated by training-and-conditioning needles sunk into their skulls. They’re released from the cages when they’re old enough to function according to the city’s corporate needs, and now—as Jareth speaks of them, and of the order of the city—Caspar wonders at the reason for his words and marvels at the surprise that Jareth has changed the position of his arm and now holds Caspar’s hand. Gently...and with something timid in its manner. *** The above text occurs in some nameless city born in the wacky convolutions of my brain. The image is of Chicago, taken from the transfer bridge between northbound Brown and Purple Line trains and Southbound Green, Orange, and Pink Line Trains. I was taken by the fact that Chicago actually looked kinda pretty and a bit bright--sort of; I took this shot in order to remind myself that yes The Chicago Loop is actually bright…but apparently only at after sundown. As always thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.