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Periodically R’lyeh sends forth a hollow, tooth-aching, atonal song that echoes across the whole city. The song’s a problem; listen to it for more than a few minutes and you start thinking Mexicans and birth control are what’s really wrong with the world, and maybe a nice mass shooting would solve both problems.
All of this drowns out the song. So, thanks to so much of New York being so damn New York, we okay.
I need the sidewalks rising to meet my feet the way bodega cats lift their asses when you knuckle near their tails. I need to slip over the barrier at the edge of the subway platform, past the patches of fermenting piss, to breathe the mingled aromas of rat poison and ozone. I need to crouch down by the East River to poke the slime growing on the rocks, wondering what kinds of chemicals are trying to soak through my skin. People who travel, they talk about how clean other cities are. Not much gum on the sidewalk in Toronto; wild. In Bern, crews empty street garbage cans ten times a day. Nice,
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This ain’t the kind of city where you can start from nothing anymore and have a real chance, and I started with less than nothing. American Dream been a sucker bet.
That’s my Manhattan: neat and proper on the surface, walking near-death experience underneath.
“The Enemy still floats over Staten Island. Think she’s taking a break?”
they secretly wish they could live here, too, but are too scared to try, whatever.
Thus does the Queen of Queens reclaim her throne—only to belatedly realize somebody stole her aloe plant. Fucking city. She loves it so much.
This fear has been fanned by right-wing conspiracy theories about what caused Bridgefall, ranging from ISIS to space aliens hepped up on Critical Race Theory and invited to conquer Earth by George Soros.
He’s a chill guy, the living embodiment of New York; not much fazes him, angers him, or impresses him.
Crime was bad all over the city back then, but Giuliani made it seem like those neighborhoods were the only problem. Between the predatory policing and the economy, and Giuliani undermining rent stabilization, people of color were getting evicted and foreclosed-on all over those ’hoods. Now, nearly all of them have become predominantly white, and homes that used to be affordable are now worth millions.
Newcomers to New York are always surprised by how frequently one crosses paths with acquaintances in the city. Happens all the time, really.
New York is huge, but considering the sheer number of interpersonal connections one makes in the ordinary course of life, it’s actually kind of amazing that Brooklyn doesn’t randomly run into people she knows all the time.
but this sounds like a ‘you’ problem.”
Why don’t sports teams have avatars? Why isn’t Gritty immortal and magical by now?
It’s always refreshing to meet a young person who has a good head on his shoulders and a clear vision of the way the world needs to go. They aren’t always right, but they do make things so very interesting, and frequently better.
If everything really is going to shit, wouldn’t it be nice to die in someone’s arms rather than alone? Also, never mind the romantic shit, but she hasn’t gotten laid in, like, years.
It’s the way of the world, and possibly infinite other worlds: nothing lives that does not depend at least to some degree on the death of another being.
Let’s get this shit cleaned up, and get back to work.”
That’s what New York does when threatened, yes? It doubles down. It knuckles up. It steps up to any challenger and gives back as good as it gets. And it always wins, in the end, because it is New York.
The Enemy doesn’t have to erase New York, only make the world forget what New York is. New York cannot remain New York if it loses its art, its diversity, its welcome of outsiders, its daring.
The ghost of best friends never met.
“Hey. Guys? Uh, we’re all going to die. Thought you should know.”
Any New Yorker can feel like a god whether they’re an avatar or not, Veneza figures. They just need a rooftop and time.
familiar with the type—young Beckies in training to become mature Karens.
There is a message here. “Family looks out for family, no matter what.” “Well, yeah. But gotta remember family ain’t always the one you get born with. Real family’s the people who are there when you need ’em.”
Every court is a horror movie setting at its core, where property matters more than human lives and justice gets measured in billable hours.
finally has to flatten him by reminding the audience that the host was born and raised in Boston. This delights everyone in the TV studio and even gets the debate moderator snickering. Some hatreds are universal in New York.
They tried to kill her first—but they clearly forgot that Brooklyn goes hard.
So New York takes off its spiritual earrings, turns its extradimensional rings around, and surges forth into battle.
but cities innately have personalities. No one would mistake Boston’s passive-aggressive belligerence for Toronto’s passive-aggressive friendliness, or Atlanta’s overtly aggressive superiority—
The Gowanus Canal overflows, flooding streets and basements with toxic water.
the bee gets shredded, but so does the rotor, and the people inside scream as the helicopter goes down somewhere near Battery Park. There; now nobody gets a snack.
The mouthed head is formed from concentrated Staten Islander hatred of paying city taxes, for example. With it, R’lyeh means to rip out New York’s civil service—all the bridge painters and street-sweeper drivers and even the people who work at the DMV, who are as vital to a city’s life as any living thing’s intestines. The chainsaw tentacle is powered by NIMBYism, meant to chop up chunks of affordable housing and public transportation expansions. And there’s more, more, so much more.
We still set trends that the world follows, we drive whole economies toward or back from the brink, maybe we aren’t called the greatest city in the world because we have the biggest skyscrapers but because here the American Dream has a hope of someday becoming truth—
oh, God, rats and pigeons and cockroaches, and pigeons carrying rats holding cockroaches! She’s never seen anything so nasty, and she’s a Lovecraftian horror. The verminous creatures surge out of the sewers
The rats chitter with his attitude: We caused the Black Plague, bitch, who the fuck you think you are?
“‘You are required to die for the good of the multiverse,’” she says, “‘or to be transited to a state of inert existence as a dead universe. Either outcome is acceptable.’”
New York tilts his head. “No.”
but Staten Island winces and murmurs “Get off my fucking lawn,...
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“The cat should be both dead and alive. When our New York came to life, all those other New Yorks should have kept existing!
You want the cat dead when the box is opened, so our adjacent realities collapse because you think they should!”
Life runs on chaos math. It’s supposed to be varied and hard to predict—and yes, dangerous. But if something attacks you, you deal with that, you don’t just smash everything! For fuck’s sake! My toddler cousin has more sense.” She takes a deep breath, visibly reaching for calm. “There’s one way to break this stupid cycle and save yourselves before it bites you on the ass, again. Mind your business. Just stop trying to control other worlds, stop even looking at them. You’re the problem. Just let go.”
“Before we make you let go,” New York adds.
New York is the culmination of everything the Ur has feared: a multidimensional entity in full control of its creative abilities and perfectly willing to deploy them—aggressively, relentlessly—not only in its own defense, but on the offense.
Schrödinger’s cat has grown longer claws, sharper teeth, spikes, and acid blood.
Sometimes people have to get slapped in the face with a fish before they’ll admit being allergic to seafood.
“‘Sorry about all the murders. But we still don’t like you, so please leave.’” And just like that, it’s over.
I got no beef with Staten Island anymore. She pulled up and was New York when it mattered, and we ain’t all gotta like each other to work together.
If Staten wants more than tolerance, well. She’s gonna have to show and prove before any of us will trust her.
