My city is lost.
It was right nearby when I last checked. It can’t have gone too far.
I’m putting up posters, and I’m sure it will come right back. It’s very distinctive; cyclopean masonry; timeworn slabs of stone; the dust of ages piled in every over-spider-webbed corner and cranny and crevice. There will be phone calls by the morrow.
You should have a look-around too, it would be worth your time. It’s got a diamond mine, or a gold mine, or something like that. A plunderable place to be sure, a conquistador’s wet dream without all the inconvenience of owners to deal with in barter and blades and bacteria and bloody thoughts. A convenient place, wasn’t it? I thought so. I thought so.
But it won’t mean a thing if I can’t FIND it. I need to find it. It’s been a long time, yes, but that long?
My civilization is lost.
Have you seen it? Can you help me find it? It was here, just a minute ago. I put it down and walked away; I just let its hand slip from my grasp for a moment; I swear it was right there, I’m certain.
Now it’s gone and crawled away under the tectonic floorboards, buried itself in a subterranean cyst and sunk down into the abyss. Are there impassable mountains? Plateaus? Deserts? It could be under them or in them or even above them. I just don’t know where it’s gone.
There could very well be something in it for you, if you must know. It was a Great and Glorious civilization indeed, which almost goes without saying; whoever heard of losing a Small and Modest civilization? It’s unheard of! Unthinkable! There will be fabulous riches, trust me. Fabulous.
Please, you MUST come with me and look for it! It’s very important – it’s so important! It invented everything you’ve ever heard of and everything they’ve been trying to keep hushed up. It’s the reason for the pyramids and the other pyramids and the Nazca lines and the JFK assassination and the Mars landings they pretended were on the moon. It can’t have gone far, the evidence is right under your nose. All the answers are right there, waiting, yearning, stretching up to reach past our assumptions and into our minds.
But they won’t mean a thing unless we FIND it.
My world is lost.
Can anybody see it around here? It seemed large at the time, but the planet’s much older and bigger than I’d thought and now it’s rolled away into the crowded bustle of nations. It might be one of them, for all I know. Can I describe it? I’m not sure what size it was.
It was filled with fronds, that much I’m certain. It’s choked with ferns and damp and steam; except where it’s a parched volcanic badlands, or a green and alien sea. The things that call from cliffs – always cliffs, never trees – aren’t birds, I can assure you. There’s a ruin in there somewhere, but we never found out who built it; it was architectural litter, not from us, or the snakemen, or the lizardmen, or the apemen, or the troglodytes.
It was an island – no a valley – no a mountain – no a continent – no a great cavern – no it was hiding right under your feet. Unless it was on Mars. Always Mars, unless it’s Venus.
I don’t understand how I could be so STUPID. I was distracted, and things moved on, and now it’s so old and everything else is so fresh and new. I hadn’t dusted or cleaned it in ages; it was rank with rot and fat and thick, bloated flabs of grossly morbid eugenics. It’s an heirloom, it’s not mine, I’ve only got amateur interest, it’s full of historical value. Don’t look at me that way; it’s not my fault!
It doesn’t mean a thing. It doesn’t mean a THING!
I can show you, I can show you, I WILL SHOW YOU
But first I need to find it.
I am lost.
Can you tell where I am? Where I’ve been? Where I’ve gone? I’ve called and called for help but I’ve heard not a single answer. It’s a wilderness out there, undoubtedly untrammeled and bereft of a single familiar voice.
Please, won’t anyone come find me? Anyone like me. I’m not meant to be lost, you must understand. Other places are lost. Other places are meant to be found. I am always found. That’s how I do my finding. But now I’m lost and lost and lost, and all that’s between me and everyone else is my four stone walls.
These walls are high and thick and tall and I will never take them down. They keep me safe from whatever’s prowling around out there, stomping in that jungle (it must be a jungle, it’s always a jungle) with its spears and its teeth and its hot terrible breath that smells of raw meat.
I am lost here, behind my walls, my strong walls. They are crumbling now, but they always have been. I made them that way on purpose.
Let you others take down your walls and rove and roam and romp.
Simpletons!
Simpletons!
I am safe. I am safe. I must be safe behind my old stones and old words and old thoughts.
I wonder.
I wonder who will ever find me?