CATHEDRALTOWN

You are listening to TAPE 7 - Cathedraltown.
This is Archipelago. No one is an Island. You are Archipelago as we are Archipelago.
Today let’s try something different.

It is June, 2019.
You are walking the streets of the corporate township of Cathedraltown, Ontario, Canada.

The sun is out.
It is a beautiful day.
You hear a bird chirping away.
Sprinklers tending to the gardens with their rhythmic ticking.
A lawnmower somewhere - distant.

Since you moved here, you’ve fitted right in.
You feel at home here among the wonderful classic euro-centric architecture.
Cathedraltown is a town that runs on principals that you can relate to.
A master-planned community following its pure rationale.
Everything here ordered by the natural inclinations towards prosperity and growth.
Towards harmony.
A town run like a successful corporation.

You fit right in.
You keep mainly to yourself.
This is something they appreciate.
You attend most social events.
And here you fit in as well.
Of course you do.
You bring your children when this is appropriate and you attend evening outs without them.
Here you even refrain from bringing them up in conversation.
This is something they appreciate as well.
You visit the tennis courts, regularly.
Sometimes competing with others, sometimes just the machine.
You drive a hybrid and park it in your allocated parking spot.
You have your drapes closed for privacy and windows shut when a little one throws a tandrum.

You never ask about the forward positions of your investment.
The portfolios and company SEC filings speak for themselves.
If insolvency is brought up, they are quick to put an end to such foreboding talk.

In the centre of the planned matrix of residential streets, a hilltop rises above the urban layout.
A tremendous church flowers the crest.
Standing 14 storeys tall, you see the three church spires everywhere.
Always above the roofs.
The Tower of Transfiguration dominates the steeple trident.
From its belfry, the bells will toll one day and there will be congregation.
You have confidence in the prospect of this.
The tower is a reassuring sight.
Always accompanying you.
Let the steeple lift you up, they say.

One night you dreamt that the chairs and tables of the local school stood empty.
From beneath the laminate floor, the deep bellowing voices of children was heard.
Immersed in blood play.
Your children taking their turn.

You dreamt that the community could smell the torment on their blouses and sports jackets.
Settling on their skin and brought with them into bed.
Your transfigured limbs curled into the ovaries of the park’s upended tulips.
Under the sick fruit trees of its orchard.
Squirming to the long last hymn of the three-bell carillon.
Ah, how they rejoiced as they experienced your reshaping.
You crawled, chin to pavement.
Elongated body with numerous leg-bearing segments.
Face contorting in the cavity of exoskeletal misshaping.
Families sundered; such were the tunes of the still bells and everyone was haemorrhaging through the nights.
As you woke you felt it as sure as the sweat on your back.
And you feel it still.

It is immanent.

And when you’re ready.
Come out.

BACK TO WALL

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