Perspective: The Fragment
The fountain's voice faded behind me as I followed the line of lanterns deeper into the city. Their fire climbed the walls in restless shadows. Fire. The word held no mystery. Yet when its warmth brushed my cheek, the meaning fled. Warmth for me was only a measurement, never comfort.
The street widened. Stones grew flatter, swept clean by countless feet. Doorways leaned open, spilling light that made the night stagger. Mortals moved in and out of them, carrying bowls, wood, cloth—each step written with purpose.
I slowed. The world here was not stone and silence. It had a pulse.
Language. The word pressed up, brittle at first, then harder. Their mouths opened and it poured out: strings of sound fitted together, not the cosmic thunder of creation but something smaller, sharper.
A woman's voice cut the air: "The debt is due tomorrow."
Another answered, lower, resigned. I understood debt, the weight of owing, yet not the heat that edged her tone. Was it anger? Fear? The word anger existed. Fear existed. But they did not take shape inside me.
Children darted between legs, cloth tied around their shoulders to mimic wings. Their voices rose high, tumbling over one another. They shrieked a sound brighter than the torches. Laughter. The name surfaced, but not the thing itself. It was not a song, not a chant, not a warning. Just a sound cut loose, meaning more to them than to me.
One stumbled, fell, and scraped his palm. His cry broke the rhythm. The others stopped, gathered him up, and the laughter returned, carrying him along as if nothing had happened. I stared. Blood was blood. Pain was pain. Those I knew. But the way their noise stitched pain shut—that was stranger than the fall.
I walked past them, closer to the current of the street. Torchlight painted me into their world, but no head turned. To them, I was no more than another shadow walking, another body needing space. My steps tangled with theirs, clumsy, out of rhythm. They moved like a song they had practiced since birth. I had no part in it.
Voices. Dozens, each carrying shapes of need. "Bread's gone stale." "The watch will double patrols." "She waits at the square." I caught the words, every one, but not the fabric that wove them together. They slid across me, all sharp edges and no thread.
A man brushed past my shoulder. His sleeve left the memory of cloth against me. I turned as if struck, expecting something more. But he did not notice. He was already speaking to the woman beside him, hands moving to count something unseen.
The crowd thickened. A cart rattled by, wheels hammering the stones. The horse pulling it exhaled in steam and sweat. Horse. I knew it as form and function: beast of labor, spine bent to harness. But when its eyes flicked toward me, recognition caught—an instant of mirror, as if it knew the burden too.
I kept to the edge of the crowd. A shopfront spilled the smell of baking. Hunger stirred, familiar now, but sharper for the scent. People queued with coins in their fists. Coins clinked against wood, passing from one hand to another. Value traded, invisible but real to them. I knew coin, I knew value, but the line between their hands and mouths was a thread I could not follow.
Laughter rose again nearby—this time from men seated around a table. A jug passed among them, liquid sloshing. One clutched another by the shoulder, both roaring at a joke that died before reaching me. Their mirth burned louder than the torch. My body reacted before I could think: I leaned back, as if the sound itself pressed against me. Laughter. The word repeated. Heavy, light, nonsensical. I could not trap it.
The press of voices swelled. Some were weary, frayed at the ends; others carried the calm certainty of routine. Together they made a noise too thick to name. The street itself seemed to breathe them. For the first time, I felt smaller than the air I stood in.
I passed a door where music spilled—strings plucked, a drum tapped with patient hands. The tones climbed over one another like vines seeking light. A woman's voice rose with it, carrying words that half-escaped me. I caught fragments: waiting, sorrow, return. Their sound pressed on me harder than the meaning. My feet slowed. I wanted to listen longer, but the crowd did not stop. It carried me forward whether I chose it or not.
At a corner, two children shared a crust of bread, tearing it in turns, laughing again as if hunger were a game. My stomach answered, low and insistent. Their eyes glanced toward me, then away. Not recognition. Not worship. Not even interest. To them, I was no more than stone or air. The invisibility pressed harder than their gaze would have.
I leaned into a wall, watching the current pass. The mortar was rough against my palm, holding me upright where my own strength staggered. A family moved past—father, mother, child between them. Their steps matched, a rhythm too practiced to be an accident. The child hummed something under his breath, nonsense sounds shaped by comfort. My mind searched for its word. None surfaced. Comfort itself refused me.
A shout broke the rhythm. Somewhere farther down, a seller hawked goods, voice straining to rise above the street's tide. I caught words: cheap, rare, best, hurry. Each meant something, but together they became a language I could not wear.
The torch nearest me cracked, spitting resin. Flame bent in the wind, and the faces near it glowed and dimmed as if the fire decided when they could exist. I stepped back, letting the shadow claim me again. My skin cooled. My place among them was not in the light.
Still, their voices reached. Still, their laughter circled. Still, the word language echoed, fitting their mouths easily, fitting mine not at all.
I walked on, unsteady, threading between torchlight and shadow. The street widened again ahead, voices growing louder, thicker. The press of mortals pulled me forward, and though I knew the words, I did not know their world.