There are certain sides of each city where the streets are paved with gold. Mere mortals cannot see it, not in any real sense. They see the gold in their bank accounts or in the size of their houses, but we see the truth of the neighborhoods in the roads. From our point of view the cities are cut up into gold, silver, bronze, copper, iron and quartz. Then there is also dirt. But that is usually on the outskirts of the city. Or the war-torn cities. At one point in my existence I saw a city divided up into dirt, limestone, gun powder and headstones. But it was a long time ago and a very unusual situation. Someday I’ll tell you of that place. But the story takes a long time because of the shudders. Each time the memories come up into the existing world, the ground shudders and quakes and the mortals run around thinking the sky is falling.
As I said, the streets in this part of town are paved with gold, but those who walk them with mortal legs see only concrete. In the world of the past, where ghosts roam, we can see the riches of the people on the street. You, as a mortal, might speak of luxury cars or large houses, perhaps even of the jewelry one wears or the activities one takes part in, in order to assume the monetary worth of that person. But we who glide through the streets see it in the streets. in the parallel universe of the past, we don’t have to judge. Samuel, my friend from a century before me, has seen his street go from dirt to iron to bronze and back down to copper. Right now it is changing back to iron. He lost his bet with Johannis that it would soon become gold. The present investors of the city turned their sights to another neighborhood. Perhaps due to shenanigans of the Blue Trades Brothers. They tend to cause ripples in plumbing to change the modern markets. They find the frenzy it causes funny.
Me? I spend my time gliding about the streets, marveling at the lack of children playing in them. When I was a lad, the streets were our playground. Now everyone wants a backyard, though there aren’t many in the city. Usually any space in the back was filled with a house before even my time. Humans are strange when in the present parallel time. They always want what they can’t have, and lament the actions of their ancestors. I see how the kids can’t play in the streets anymore, what with each person having a car now. Imagine if each person in the city owned a horse in my day! The piles of poo would have been unmanageable.
To those who might read this, I only want to say hello. And perhaps to ask, when I pass through you on the cobblestone that you see as brick and I see as gold, that you not shudder or sigh, but smile and laugh. For you have a nice life, but you seem sad. You live in the places I used to pass by and stare at in awe, but just as the old women in my time who would shoo me away or clutch their bags tightly to their chests while hurrying to the constable when I came near, you seem to be more concerned with what you don’t have than what you do. The ecstasy you feel when bringing home that new painting or new couch, or driving that new car, doesn’t seem to last long.
I wish you could see what you have, I wish you could see into the parallel worlds and witness the rags those who used to live here once wore or the lack of teeth Jenny has from her fevers as a child.
Smile. Your world is not yet rotten and it’s paved in gold. You just don’t see it.