005 Municiple Buildings

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

You see them, sometimes, squat square one story buildings made of limestone. The windows are narrow slits, or nonexistant, and there’s a square plaque over the door saying “post office” or “municipal building” or something else vague. Sometimes there’s a very PWA carving of a blocky eagle clutching lightning bolts, or a design made of three thick straight lines. There’s always the “Y” symbol that Chicago uses, that reminder of the Chicago River’s odd shape.

The buildings always look abandoned; abandoned, but pristine. The windows, if they exist, are dark. The doorways are gated with rubbish blown against them. The small parking lot, if there is one, is surrounded by a sagging chain link fence; the asphalt is cracked and weedy. But the building is untouched by grafiti, nobody has tried to make a home in the doorway, no windows have been smashed nor have they been borded up. The buildings simply wait.

If you enter one, you will find it larger inside than it should be. The floors are clean, although worn from years of being walked upon. The murals that line the walls, representing a City at work, a People working together, are fresh looking and unfaded.

There is a dim glow to the inside of the building, enough to navigate by. If you are able to get to the center of the building you will find a small trap door set into the floor. Oil the hinges of the door, grasp the iron ring, and lift. The open door will reveal a small storage area so dark that it seems to absorb light. Reach in and you will find a small, square box made of bark. Open it, careful not to snap the string made of woven grasses, and inside you will find a human eyeball.

If you swallow this eyeball, you will be able to see beneath the masks that people — and those masquerading as people– wear as they walk the streets and sit in their homes. If you do not put an eye of your own, voluntarily, in the box and reseal it in its hiding place, however, you will not survive the year.

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