The Sinking City

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate the winged-lion signal - RECEIVE - initiate the cadence of Saint Mark - WE CONTROL THE HORIZONTAL - initiate the Sandon prerogative - WE CONTROL THE VERTICAL - initiate the simulator sickness - WITNESS - the Venetian agenda.

Once upon a time, there was a sinking city. There was a sinking ideal. Dampness and corruption. Something rots in Venice. But what is time to us? We stand outside. We watch in reverse: Emit a nopu ecno, a city rises out of the water! This fills us with hope.

You are not so lucky. You play a limited game, a few limited dimensions. The camera always pans forward. You can't go back. Everything gets faster and faster, and then you die. GAME OVER.

There is a better game, deep in the Council's catacombs. We saw it! We see it! The room. You must enter the room, sweetling. A box of nightmares is just the thing. Arturo will call it a whetstone. He'll bid you to sharpen yourself. Will you be a knife, wielded in the fray? Or will you be a scalpel, drawing the Y-incision in the postmortem of the universe? Better luck next game.

Ask Arturo about his wild nights. The sighs. The conquests. It might summon a smile to his troubled face. He is of Casanova's bloodline. Did you know that, sweetling? At the height of sensation, Casanova could hear us whispering in his ear.

Ask Arturo about Tokyo. Ask him about Sarah. Watch despair paint his face. Ask him about the doll he keeps in his pocket.

Venice is sinking. Predators and rescuers are summoned by the same vibration. Do you hear the purple flutter of sails in the distance?