There are many different states before you get to this one. But I don’t remember them. I don’t even remember how I got here, for I don’t even remember being born in the Lonely Fields. But there I was.  A place so big and crowded, that it took five years to reach the next town. There are buildings on top of buildings. It was dark there always, for the tall buildings blocked out the sun. Streets so crowded that people walked on top of each other. The only place where there was any room, was in each person’s home. We all lived alone, but we had everything we needed in our homes. The television talked to us, the radio sang to us. We had unique, high tech gadgets and devices that would entertain us, have sex with us and educate us. They could do everything for us, except keep us from being lonely. There was no limit to the space or things that one could have. Our homes were our castles of isolation and we needed as many things in them to entertain ourselves on our own and to avoid the busy streets of the Lonely Fields. Everyone was rich, so was I, I guess. Many people tried to leave, but most came back. The ones that didn’t return, were never heard from again; for better or for worse. Our only source for information was the TV, the radio or our computers. But it was only local news. Now, when one decided to leave, he or she does not tell anyone. In a crowded city, there is no one to tell. You just leave. There is rumoured that there is a City of Peace. But no one ever returned to tell us about it. They say that no one ever returns from the City of Peace if they make it. It may be only a myth, but it is that myth that encourages hope among the hopeless. Now as I decided to leave, I vowed that I would return to speak of the City of  Peace if ever I discovered such a place. I will not tell you of my journey through the Lonely Fields. I will only say that I could not ask for any directions. It took me five years to finally get out. I remembered standing at the edge of the Lonely Fields. Behind me it was, but in front of me was nothing.

Between each city, there lies a long stretch of barren land. It is called the Silent Zone. One must walk it before getting to the next city. It is scary, for the nothingness and the silence offers no answers for the curious. It is only a horizon line, that’s all one can see, sky and dirt. But one thing that everyone knows, is that you can always return to the Lonely Fields.

I stepped off the soil of the Lonely Fields and onto the soil of the Silent Zone. Instantly, the sounds of the Lonely Fields dissolved into silence. The only sounds one hears is his own footsteps or those of another walking back to the Lonely Fields. One may talk to people once you are in a city, but it is an ancient and obeyed law, that in the Silent Zone, you may talk to no one, for any reason. You must walk it alone. Only you and whatever it is you may believe in.

After months of walking, I finally saw the beginning of the next city. I could see hundreds of people at the entry of the city. I could not hear them but they beckoned me and I ran towards them as fast as I could. I stepped off the soil of the Silent Zone and onto the soil of the new city. Instantly, the sounds flooded my ears. I laughed like a mad man for the silence had been driving me insane. Everyone wanted to talk to me. I asked where I was. They told me I was in the Restless Plains. I was excited to finally be somewhere. It looked very different from the Lonely Fields. It was much more primitive. People mostly lived in huts, tents and shacks. There were a lot of buildings that had never been completed for the people would become bored before they could finish constructing them. It wasn’t as crowded as the Lonely Fields but it had a large population and it seemed as if the entire population was out and about on the streets. Everyone was busy with some activity. There was shouting, talking, dancing, crying and lots of laughter. Everyone was doing something, either together or separately.  There were loads of people at the entry of the city. They call to you with wide and curious eyes. They talk to you constantly as they pace back and forth. They buy packages of anxiety. They shop in stores where they sell ideas. But the ideas run out in 30 minutes and they look for fast fixes in new company. They say, ‘Got any good ideas. If you won’t give them to me for free, I’ll buy them, or I’ll trade you a bad idea for a good idea.” The busiest place by far was an antique store, where they sold very old ideas for a lot of money. The people of this restless town look under boxes and carpets for things to do. They have babies and the babies have more babies. People having babies for lack of a better idea.  It is a city of youth. Most people were born here, unlike the other cities where one may end up. Everyone is scared of boredom and everyone’s favorite idea is to leave this place.

The president of this city is the one that entertains the people for the longest amount of time. This week’s president was a man who could bend himself into a pretzel-like shape while telling jokes. The clowns always make the best presidents in the Restless Plains. I  stayed here for three years before I finally got out. Coming from the Lonely Fields, it was nice to talk to people. But after three years, I ran out of things to say. I grew unbearably restless as I travelled to the city’s end. At the edge of the city, there was just as big a crowd as there was at the city’s beginning. People sit and wait for those who return and there are those who sit, deciding whether or not to leave. They are afraid of the Silent Zone. It is always the hardest to enter the Silent Zone from the Restless Plains.  For the nothingness of the Silent Zone keeps the restless at bay. Any more time in this city and the boredom of the time that passes while one walks the Silent Zone would have repelled me too. It took a lot of courage to step onto the soil of the Silent Zone. But I did, and again the silence, the dusk, and the footsteps of those returning. The time passing in maddening silence as you make your way to your next destination.

The next city was called the City of Excess. You could hear the noise of the people engaged in activity, just as in the Restless Plains. This a was a place of indulgence. It was filled with the dying. Not the old and dying, but the young and dying. There were the old ones, but they looked as if they had been dead long ago, as if they lived on the memory of life, as they ate, drank, smoked, overindulged. I really didn’t want to be there, but if you don’t go on, the only thing you can do is go back. I stayed there the shortest time of all the cities. I travelled the whole city in a year. It was mostly a city that people travelled through, for long residency meant a short life, but there are always those willing to die young.

It took its toll on me. I overindulged in sex, drugs, booze and money. Initial contact with all of these experiences was exciting. I, like all who lived here, was greedy for sensations. Too much was never enough. We all sought more in whatever way we could get it. This city surely had the highest death rate. The death rate could be attributed to a number of reasons; homicide, suicide, overdosing. It was a violent city which consisted of many neighborhoods. Each neighborhood was a long street that went on for several miles. Each street was named for its particular indulgence. There was Liquor Lane, Sex Drive and Pusher’s Market. There were more, but they were mostly suburbs of these smaller neighborhoods. They were even more violent, for whatever madness your particular indulgence drew you into, you would be banned to the suburbs, where there was no limit to the abuse that you could put yourself through. There are no jails here or in any other city, for each city provides self- imprisonment.

There are those of us who want to leave here too. We complained. We hated ourselves. We didn’t respect ourselves, then we indulged in as many things as we could in order to forget ourselves. 

As I said, I made it out in a year. Aged and run down from my excesses, for the first time, I sought comfort in walking the Silent Zone. My thoughts spoke to me the whole distance. They were encouraging and for the first time, my own thoughts were the only ones I wanted.

The next place was called the State of Misery. It was a cosy, quaint looking place. This is where I felt most at home. It had characteristics of all the cities I had visited before. They even had a Lonely Street. It was populated with the very young to the very old.

The main activity of this town centred around the hospitals, where the doctors kept life-long patients doped up on sorrow and dissatisfaction. And the nurses would give you a shot of discontentment before you were even admitted to see the doctor.

The number one movie for the last 600 years was called “Self Pity.” The movie industry had gone out of business after finding a goldmine in this one film. But there was always a friend to find. We gathered in huddles, talking of how bad life was, how unfair it was. We philosophised about the state of this miserable world and gave no solutions of hope. If one got too hopeful, they’d run to the drug store to purchase a “Bring Me Down” pill.

This was the most popular spot for vacationers. Most everyone had passed through at least once. Many found it a perfect place to retire. Misery loves company, and at least for the ones that dwelt there, they would be surrounded by friends. One and all could drift in each others sorrow. It was almost soothing. We talked of the struggle that it took to get us this far. We patted each other on the back for being strong enough to get here, for almost all had lived in other cities before. We even felt superior in our misery, pitying those weaker ones that never made it out of the other cities. “It was those other terrible cities,” we would say, “that brought us to this state.” We spoke of everything, everything except for the Silent Zone.     

The State of Misery was surely the easiest to live in. I don’t know how long I stayed there. You simply could spend a life-time there before you noticed that you were getting old in the State of Misery. There was always sorrow, old or new, to be shared or kept to oneself.

I know not how long I stayed there, months, maybe a year, maybe even 10 years, for the time moves the slowest through the State of Misery. I had forgotten about my journey. I just kept travelling from one person to the other, from one’s misery to another’s. it was purely by coincidence that I found myself on the outskirts of the city. The Silent Zone was ahead of me. I hesitated. I wanted to stay as much as I wanted to go, for I had found my truest friend in misery. Well, I knew I could return and I too thought that I may like to retire here. I looked at the Silent Zone, so curious to what may lay beyond it. I remembered my vow to return to each city and preach about the City of Peace, if ever I found it. I dreamed I would create a massive movement and lead everyone on a successful pilgrimage to the City of Peace. I would be remembered forever. These were my thoughts as I took my first step onto the Silent Zone for the third time.

I remember the walking. It seemed endless, so utterly hopeless. I had never stopped to rest while I walked the Silent Zone, but this time I did. I had been walking for years through the Silent Zone and there was not another city in sight. I thought again of going back to the State of Misery to retire, as so many had done before. Maybe that was the last stop. I didn’t know. I forgot what I was looking for. I looked around me. There were other people, some ahead, some behind. Some were resting, others sleeping, and some had even set up homes on the Silent Zone. Living quietly without a word, completely alone, cause in the Silent Zone, every walks alone. You may try to leave a city with another, but you will part very soon. The darkness and the mist that occurs much of the time and the strange silence, makes strangers of even mother and child. It pulls at them, and the pain of not being able to cry out to them, distances them even further until their paths are completely separated. No person can walk more than five steps with another on the Silent Zone. It demands that you walk it alone.

I wanted to scream, just for the sound, to let out the madness. I ran ahead as far as I could, until exhaustion overtook me and I fell to the ground, crying silently. I thought I’d die here, for I believed myself faithless now. But what city was there for the faithless I asked myself. Then it occurred to me, some of the people I’d seen before, I thought they were sleeping. I realized some of them were dead. And others that I thought were resting, they were dying. There are not even last words for the dying, for those who die in the Silent Zone. I didn’t want to die here, like this, like them, with faithless thoughts in silence.

My next step was a commitment. I’d die trying. I got up and continued walking. Walking and walking, asking a question with each step, trying to answer them as I continued walking. I noticed people turning back. I guess they ran out of questions, for it was the questions that kept you company and trying to answer them that kept you busy. I knew that I might die here, in that large strip of barren land called the Silent Zone. Maybe that was the best that I could do with my life. I didn’t know what I was suppose to get out of life. Maybe that was all there was. What was I expecting, some eternal happiness. I never met anyone like that. What would make me think that it exists or that I deserve it or that life even had it to offer. If I died there, it would be OK. For I would not have laid down to die, I would have to fall. And if would be as such, at least this place came with no obsessions. It was your own world, yes it was isolated, without words or company, but at least it was the world within your mind, at least it was completely yours.

It was walking here year after year, that I grew into myself without any outside influences. I listened to my mind and tried to make sense out of it. It wasn’t till years later that I stopped to read a sign. It was a small wooden sign that was planted in the ground. It read, ‘You are now leaving the City of Resolution.’

I stood there for a second, unbelieved that it had been a city that I was in all of that time. I was relieved that I would not die there after all. But there was no time to pat myself on the back. I had to move on for there was still the Silent Zone ahead of me and there was truly no turning back now. I continued on, walking calmly through the Silent Zone, my thoughts not so heavy, my searching not so intense and only enough curiosity as I needed to keep walking. I still didn’t understand the world, but I understood myself a little more. I became my best and only friend. I walked with myself, I talked to myself and I began to love myself. I walked with very good company until one day, I saw the beginning of the next city. I ran closer until I came upon it. It was called the City of Peace.

I did not jump for joy as my feet touched its soil. I sat on the ground and stared at the city. There were small houses and there were also large skyscrapers. There were many people but not so many. The people didn’t run to me when they saw me, but they smiled and waved. I got up and walked towards them.

Of the City of Peace, I cannot speak of much. All I can say is that it does exist. No one is born there. No one. It’s not particularly beautiful although it surely can be. It rains a lot and it’s often cold but then again, there are days that are warm and sunny. The people are all friendly, but you will only find one best friend. The city’s end is a cliff. You may look down miles below you at the rocks and ocean. No more Silent Zone beyond this point, only death.  There is no where else to go, unless you want to go back and no one ever does.

I never returned to the other cities like I said I would, to preach. It is no one’s right to do so, the myth has always existed, those who want it enough, will seek it out. Besides, I’m an old man now getting ready to die in the City of Peace.