Writing Experiment Number 1

I have been working on a project with another writer where we are trying to shape a performance for sometime in October. We are very different people and very different writers, so it will be an interesting assignment.

We have a general theme, which is a kind of walking and mapping around our city. How we both interpret this is well, what is interesting. Anyway, I started trying to write a piece about this place I am oddly attracted to.

Expo Boulevard and Georgia Street

Take 1
It is an urban cave. Or it used to be. Slowly they have been building around it. Big stores on both sides, but inside it is still dark and primal.

Take 2
In the midst of summer and the constant rush to gentrify everything, there are still some places, dark places, where the light does not penetrate. A dark tunnel that conducts cars from one side of the city to the next. Inside, it is empty and inches of dust and old car exhaust covers everything. It is a place you could wait out the end of the world. Lying in the rafters above, while the whole world ground to a stop, Cars run through every second, but if you are quiet, you can feel the throb of the earth underneath the noise of the cars. If you close your eyes, you can imagine you are feeling the heart beat of the world.

Take 3
In this city of light there are a still a few dark places where the light of new development and new ideas cannot penetrate. This is an old place formed, I know, by newish architecture—it is still a cave. Sometimes I need the dark, I need a place to go back to. A place where we all once came from. I revisit this place, to recharge, to remember what is important, without the glitz and the glare of the light. Here is a place where time stops, you can feel the beating of the earth’s heart, beating alongside your own. Here I remember, nothing lasts.

Final
In this city of light there are a still a few dark places where the light of new development and new ideas cannot penetrate. This is an old place formed, I know, by new architecture—it is still a cave. Sometimes I need the dark, I need to visit that place where we all once came from. I go to remember what is important, without the glitz and the glare of the light. Here is a place where time stops, you can feel the beating of the earth’s heart, beating alongside your own. Here I remember, nothing lasts.