Status: snippet

"You're… The City. That's weird to say. How do I refer to you? He, she?"

"'They' will do, I think."

"That doesn't sound right, 'they' is plural."

"Am I?"

I paused, my hand pinching the edge of my seat absentmindedly. What a bizarre thing to say. The answer was clearly in the question, but the opposite answer was clearer in the name I had just been given. Two realities seemed to disagree. I deliberated, and then suddenly wondered what The City's reality was. "Are you?"

The City hovered an open hand by the paper coffee cup. If a silhouette could smile, I felt it the way the heat of the coffee must have felt on The City's shadowy palm.

The City lifted the cup to take a sip, and returned the volley. "Are you?"

I started laughing, I couldn't help it. The language was all so contradictory, from words alone there might have been a thousand people in the room or just the two of us. I laughed harder as the tension — that I hadn't realized was there — left me, and I picked up my cup of tea to hide my face. "Ok, ok," I conceded, "'they' it is."