…and the people are still walking.
I started at 12:13pm. It's 88 degrees with piercing sun rays. The sweet touching my lips became a form of hydration.
I walked the city that lives above the Earth, reaching for the stars, and never touching heaven. There is little to no foot traffic and cars are constantly moving. The advertisements are dull, a distinct smell consistently hovers over, and the streets carry decomposed material.
It shares very little with other metropolitans. The typical image and break neck speed one would imagine is not seen but felt. The exhaustion from relentless efforts to live is felt.
There is an intense presence of death to the city's image looming all over. It's consumed itself in this death almost, leaving isolation and emptiness across miles of street. There is no image.
The city has eaten itself, leaving only it's skeleton to show.
It's a land of vultures, no different from the Mojave Desert. The sentiments bleed into how people maneuver and interact.
Movement is everything in Los Angeles. The lights stay on, the machines must operate, and the people drag through sidewalks as though a ghost is haunting them, pushing down against their bodies.
Has the city conformed too much into its lack of image? The very structure created to uplift has broken itself and its people. Its refusal to accept this has poisoned it.
Death is creeping and gradual.
How much do the people here really know where they live?
Do they know who lives here?
The silent voices begin to speak for themselves, it's deafening. Disorder is spaced out through every couple blocks, hidden almost.
The reality of being here is messy and brutal. But not always.
I realized something about living in a city like Los Angeles.
There is still a desire to be human in a city like this. The mere act of movement represents this.
Life is made not found. Beauty is being attentive and believing. Time and space can as dense as the air but consumption is a choice.
To live in Los Angeles, you must move and change with it. To die in Los Angeles, you must know what it means to live and continue living. But you can't escape easily. It wants more life and the people are still walking.
You still see glimpses of God in the city of Angels.