Главная страница «Первого сентября»Главная страница журнала «Английский язык»Содержание №5/2006

YOUTH ENGLISH SECTION

Living in a Big City

The sun rises. The morning with its innocence and freshness is reflected in a million sparkling windows of the megapolis.

The day has begun. Voices and sounds fill the air of the city and finally it has become an immense creature. We are the part of this monster, its moving body, its brain, its blood.

Everyone is connected with the City, everyone depends on the rules it makes. We are all and nothing for it. We are just the people.

I open my eyes. The dream hasn’t brought deep calm to my soul. I’m tired, but I have to get up and move, move, move... play the role chosen by someone else, not by me.

But I have to, and every morning I wake up to have my tasteless breakfast and to leave my house.

The streets. They’re always full of silent thoughts, hopes, desires. Chains of people, hurrying somewhere on business, let me into the body of a crowd and I become a link of this chain. Then I find myself the one in this kingdom of Indifference. And its power is everywhere: wherever I turn my head I see people going down into the subway or waiting at the bus-stop. More often than not their faces express nothing or only irritation. Nothing more for each other, not even a smile. I’m the same. I have to play the role – it’s the only way to survive in the mad rhythm in the world of the megapolis.

The darkness comes. It brings the cold. The bodies of the city beings move under the night lights, shivering in the blue colour of the moon. The night. It’s the time of desire and feasting, it’s also the spell of anger, trembling voices, drunken laughter and screaming. It’s a spell of oblivion.

And who are we then, living in a big city, deep feelings and empty hearts? What are we in the world of high buildings and low desires?

We’re the body of the city, its brains, its blood.

We’re just the people…

By Marina Adamova