Orchestra in a City Canyon

A social sci-fi prose poem about life arising after a chaotic era turns formerly crowded downtowns into quiet new spaces.

What remains of crumbling buildings, the fallen bricks, and the mortar damaged by collapsing pieces of glass and steel? Stark reminders where the masses once walked, and where the old rich thought they would rule forever.

Now, forever belongs to those city canyons. There are people who have chosen to walk these streets, where a person now was less likely to speak yet once again hear the waves of the bay, the lapping of a river, alongside the calls of the cats who inhabit holes in the walls, and the dogs who run free, unleashed, and gather in packs and large, empty spaces. Abandoned vehicles, rusty with dust-cloudy windows, cats hide under. There are no more rats - cats, dogs, and coyotes have had their fill, even if that was not their first choice. 

The Chaos won out. The true winners were scores of musicians who wandered the streets. Some played at corners. Some sat in benches, pocked with broken pieces of wood and plastic, serenading legions of feral dogs.

Where  money was once the god worshiped here, the spirit of the music now inhabited the pavement.

One day, through sound, the musicians found their way, and on the streets. Harmony was happening, one horn, then two, fill the air for even the cracks in the structures to be filled. Notes were curvy to follow the trails of sculptures.

Drums soon entered in the distance, beginning a communication as drummers across distances have done through centuries, now along with the guitars, basses, and more percussion, even portable battery powered keys, not always plugged in to one of the very few electrical outlets that remain.

No conductor. No composer. Every song was new, yet carried on the old tradition.