'The Hidden City...'
Once upon a time there were lots of people living together in a city which was full of laughter and variety and fun. In the daytime they worked with each other, and in the evenings they knocked on each other’s doors and told stories about things they had done. Sometimes they were sad, but they always knew their friends were just around the corner, or behind adjoining walls. But there came a time when people began to leave the area to work far away, and when new people moved in they did jobs which their neighbours didn’t know about and people stopped speaking. The doors began to sprout locks, and people stayed shut in behind them, and when they went out, they pulled up their collars against the cold, and walked fast, and the city grew sad and lonely. Then one day someone came along, and began to listen to all the voices behind the closed doors, and the stories they had to tell about how they arrived in the city. Some had been there for years and years, and some had arrived only days before, some were shy, and some were eager to talk. And that someone took all the stories, and released them in the air, and they began to weave and fly, forming streams which whispered back through the letterboxes. And before long the people became interested, and they began to hear keys turning, and the doors opening, slowly at first, and then faster and faster. The people came out, and blinked in the sunshine which they hadn’t seen for so long, and started to talk… ‘I heard…’ they said… ‘that you came from…’. And so it was that the city began to live again.
