An architect, I was employed.

Twenty years in the profession, and never had I met so particular a task. On a quiet day, one king approached me, and struck me with the command:

“You shall make me the greatest city!” he demanded, and turned swiftly, awaying back to his castle.

“Alright,” was my answer, but he was much too away to hear it.

I was to embark on the creation of the greatest city, for his majesty himself.

***

No archetypes were provided, and all liberties I assumed.

I begun with a spacious, large and mighty foundation for the city. It would be square, geometrically fine. It would all be justified geometrically, so that it could be greatly greatest; foundation in science could only be what guaranteed such perfection.

Next came the walls, all tall and insurmountable, with defences impenetrable, to fend off galaxies of antagonists should they come: though none would wish to attack the greatest city, so awesome would be its grandeur.

Next, I built the streets. Clean and straight, with only the rigidest of foundations to vanish the possibility of imperfections into a hasty mist of impossibility. The handsome footpaths that lined them glistened with arithmetic precision – so fine was my handiwork (I had made it all by hand.)

Next, came the houses. Each house, no two unalike, a mirror of identicality that spanned from the basement to the peaks of their roofs, was a copy of that to its left, and right; and front or back. They were built on the classical style, to worship tradition, and to hail all beauty that was eternal, that surpassed time in its excellence, and that would serve aeons as the object of adulation to any being with half an aesthetic eye. So beautiful were the houses, that they became homes, with only but a glance from the heart: so welcoming was their presence, so attracting their wondrous aura.

***

When the king returned to see what I had built, he looked at it all, and praised its beauty.

“So glorious!” he told me, and I could not help agree.

But when he saw inside the edifices that lined the sparkling cobble streets, he asked:

“And what are these houses for? Are they not all full of concrete on the insides? Where will my citizens live?”

And I told him, that no living human would dare near my magestical city, lest they apply their humanity to it, and damn the entirety to become forever hideous, in the carcass of the soon-to-be.

26.V.2022