New favourite entry. This is reminscent of Disco Elysium — particularly that moment on the dance floor in an abandoned church that was once a military bunker which now holds a 2mm hole that will swallow the world. And where bass thumps through your veins and you talk to the soul of a city who knows that she will die in nuclear fire within your lifetime. The prose is gorgeous, especially the descriptions of people's final breaths and humanizing each and every person who walks the streets and lives in the corners and alleys and skyscrapers. There's a cynical, witty, despairing, awe-filled hope to the tone, writhing like a colossal serpent of literature and history, and I am so glad to be allowed to ride it. You have done beautifully.
As for the contest, this work perhaps fits the contest theme best of all that I have read so far. You describe the most common thing, and you do it so gorgeously and poetically with heart and song and feeling that it becomes spectacular and tragic and glorious as the rising sun after a season of winter as the world bursts into green and bloom. My only regret is not reading this work sooner.
This work tastes like the aftermath of fireworks, the splendid shocks of colour on the tongue intermingled with gunpowder that could have been used for war but instead was parsed and doled out in careful wrapped packages to shoot skyward for pleasure and awe: firepower for creativity. This work tastes like honeycrisp apples drizzled in caramel and soaked in a layer of ethanol so they can burst into flame like torchheads over a roaring bonfire, bitten into when they are crisp and half-melted like a still-drying oil painting, laughing with friends and delighting in the warmth of the sweets and the cool crunchy interior, baked again and again until it's all but a tasty stick that remains. This work tastes like s'mores over stovetop burners and protein bars in subway tunnels and packed lunches discovered when you are hungry and preparing for finals week. This is my favourite work. I love it so. Thank you for giving us this treasure to read.
-Styg
