Steelscape write up for CaptainKYSO

Here is the link to the original appearance of the story. (Edit Note:  It appears that CaptainKYSO is under construction as it changes hands.  The original story is posted below, however I will leave the link in for the future when the site is up again.) The first in series of hard lines and perspective tee shirts by the artist known as SilentOP.  Given the futuristic look of this shirt, I wrote a short story with a Twilight Zone feel done in the style of a letter written to a loved one about the dangers posed by the sentient city.  I left it a little open-ended because I knew similar style designs from this artist were going to come along.  Part of selling this shirt in a compelling manner meant I wanted the emotional link the customer formed by reading this story to pique their interest in not only reading the story when another shirt by this artist came along, but make them feel a connection that would make them feel like they needed to buy every shirt in the series.

Steelscape write up

Intro:  The city is not what it seems my love, this landscape of cold steel towers and glass walls.  It is always growing, and that is the problem…

                When we first created the City of Steel, it seemed only natural that all functions of its automation be run on an algorithm would do what was needed for the city to grow and thrive.  Automated construction and robotic maintenance seemed like a great thing at the time.  For people to live here in what we thought would be a peaceful world.  People moved in to the great gleaming edifices that the machine had created.  “Imagine it,” we told the people.  “A place kept so clean, so beautiful; ever changing to help you grow and thrive.” But it was not the people alone that grew and thrived. 

                For many years I’ve tried to deny what I knew to be true.  I thought perhaps it was mere fantasy, an elaborate analogy for this place.  I don’t know if you can see it Evelyn, but the city is dangerous.  It too grows and thrives just as heartily as any living thing within it.  I don’t know when it grew into sentience, but it has.  I know I sound crazy, but we aren’t safe.  No one who stays within its walls is safe, and no one who tries to leave it can be assured.

This wonderment that we created has eaten into the world, and it is literally continuing to devour it.  As it grew and fed on the landscape, we have sat idly by thinking that it was simply following programming, that it was doing its best for those who live inside.  I know that I should marvel at the ever pristine streets and how content everyone is from man to child.  Indeed I am daily filled with awe as I gaze out on our great city.  But the city seems to creep along like an ever endless ocean eating away at a dwindling shore.  Lately I have heard something that I have to see if it’s true.  People joke that there is no escape from the city, that the streets do not merely seem without end, but that the city itself will grow around you like a suddenly sprouting weed even as you leave its borders.  Evelyn, I think this landscape that once was the hope and dream of every person left in our war torn world, has now become an inescapable nightmare from which there is no waking. 

                At times I do love it, and the city seems to love me back.  I’m having trouble remembering when we were without the city.  Do you think it has made us forget?  Do the lights and streets have some inner hypnotic power?  Has it always been this way?  Yes, we have the forest preserves under the great domes, but are they enough?  Please don’t be afraid of what I am saying here.  I know it seems so frightening.  I myself fear to write it, but I don’t know how else to say it.  We think that it is so great, but how often do you think of leaving the city? 

                I think about leaving it, but not as much as I used to.  And I don’t know why.   I have to try to leave while I still can.  To try and fight against its allurement.  If I am right, and the city is growing in the ways that I fear, I am not sure what the city will do to me when it finds out that I am leaving.  If I don’t return, you have to fight the city.  But I don’t know if even that is possible anymore.

Keep This Shirt On If:  You think the march of progress is inevitable.

Forget About It If:  You like to hold back the tide of the future.

Color:  Towering Black buildings of the future.

Artist Bio:  Jay Maniang likes to think of himself as ever shaping the essence of reality itself, bending and shaping all buildings and structures to his will.  Mostly what he does though is sit in coffee shops wondering how cool it would be to build a tower out of empty cups.