In the city of Civilopolis, there is an invisible jungle. Where people walk, secret lions prowl. Where cars roll by, lumbering beasts run. The roars go unheard, the hunger unfelt; but the roars are heard, the hunger is felt. In the city of Civilopolis, there is an invisible wilderness.
Inspector Jarles is a P.I. in Civilopolis, the city of the future. He seeks out missing persons and recovers stolen goods. He alone suspects the existence of the world around him. He alone feels the hunger for what it is.
In the city of Civilopolis, there is an invisible kingdom of animals. Where the overcrowding of people makes life uncomfortable, wild apes swing freely just beyond the eye. In the city of Civilopolis, the unsure children cry.
Inspector Jarles is on the case of a missing youth, the third such case this month. The other two cases turned up bodies. He hopes this one will not. He questions the parents. He questions the neighbors. Nothing. In the city of Civilopolis, no one knows the truth. Inspector Jarles suspects.
In the animal kingdom at Civilopolis, hunger is the only law. Hunger permeates the fur, the teeth, the flesh. Birds eat rodents, snakes eat birds, lions eat snakes, birds eat dead lions, everything eats everything else. Everything eats to survive. In the animal kingdom at Civilopolis, there is an invisible city of the future.
The invisible jungle was not always at Civilopolis. The city of the future was once just that. The city was progress. The city of the future was built on possibility and hope. The city of the future could’ve. When did the invisible animals come? Did the zebra bring the lion? Did the Crocodile chase it’s prey here? Did the prey bring the predator or was the prey herded here? The mouse runs to survive, the cat hunts to survive. There is an invisible jungle at Civilopolos. A real, sweaty, dense, animal kingdom, just beyond the conscious mind.
In the city of Civilopolis everyone can now feel the hunger. The unspoken hunger gnawing at their sanity. A invisible heat eating out their chilled exteriors from within. They wonder if anyone else feels this hot hunger but each is afraid to ask. They fear the heat, hate the hunger within. The hunger must be unspoken.
Inspector Jarles can now hear the invisible jungle at Civilopolis. He can hear the roars, the screams. Two more children dead. He glimpses teeth, maybe fur? The Inspector suspects, but Jarles is old. The Inspector goes to the Mayor.
The mayor Dirley of Civilopolis is not old. The mayor of Civilopolis is not unwise. Jarles asks him about the hunger, for he has seen the signs of it. The signs of the derelicts and the signs of the artists; but the mayor knows. The mayor Dirley is a sad man. He has been to the invisible chaos. He has seen the invisible. The mayor Dirley knows that the city of the visible would not exist without the hunger of the invisible. The hunger is survival. If the invisible animals stopped hunting, the visible humans would stop advancing. The city of the future would fall to the past. The animal’s hunger to survive feeds their hunger for more.
“Why was it not always here, then?” Jarles asks him. The mayor Dirley just looks down. He does not know. Jarles declares that he will solve it. He will fix whatever quantum error has brought this invisible world into the same space as his beloved city. Jarles is driven, for Jarles once lost a son. Jarles is hungry for a solution. Jarles is hungry.
Inspector Jarles finds 4 more bodies the next week. He needs to solve his mystery. The hunger is unbearable. The invisible animals have begun to smell the visible humans. Fights break out in the streets. Shoulders bump on the subway and fists are swung. A man jaywalks and is shot dead for it. The city of Civilopolis is a city of ice, and the ice is breaking. The heat of the jungle is approaching.
The mayor Dirley of Civilopolis is found dead, shot by his own hand. Heat is coming to this old city of the future. Inspector Jarles is afraid. He’s afraid of the city, and afraid of himself, and afraid of the hunger growing within himself. He nearly kills a man trying to find the kid-killer. The invisible jungle is breaking through.
Finally it happens. The ice breaks. The world collide. Inspector Jarles wakes to screams and wild animals running in the streets. Hawks and vultures swooping and fighting, lions and tigers brawling in the streets, zebra running afraid and abandoning their own to save themselves. Elephants mating in the intersections, Giraffes entangling their necks and kissing. Buildings crumbling. Jarles notices that there are no more people. “Have the people become the animals?” He wonders. “This is a living nightmare!”
Then, across the street from his window, he sees the gorilla. The old gorilla, tired and wise. He makes eye contact with the gorilla. The gorilla smiles, and so does Jarles. Though he does not know why, Inspector Jarles feels good. Relieved, almost. The hunger is leaving him. He has seen his animal, and acknowledged it. He looks again at the carnage in the streets. The signs are gone. The stores are gone. There are no more cars, and the buildings are burning.
The city of Civilopolis is not what is used to be, and Jarles senses something new. There is an invisible world again, but it’s not hunger that is piercing him. He looks into the smoke and fire and sees that the buildings are still there. He looks down and sees new signs on the street. The signs of fear and tension have been replaced with signs of progress and hope. There are people again in the street, and they are fighting the animals. Not fighting with guns but The people are winning. Their hunger is now their survival, they hunger to live.
Eventually the animals are again no longer visible, and Jarles no longer senses them just beyond himself. He looks for the Gorilla and sees it fading. Again they smile at each other, and wave in the same way. Both have faded green eyes.
In the city of Civilopolis, when the people awaken from their dreams, the city is new. The hunger of tension quenched, they now hunger for progress once more. They have survived, but survival isn’t enough. They hunger for more of a reason to live than mere survival. No one mentions the animals, but all remember. The signs of the derelicts and the signs of the artists now carry a message of hope. Everyone is looking forward to the future now.
Jarles retires from his P.I. practice, but stays in Civilopolis. He wonders, often, what caused the meeting of worlds. Did the proximity of the invisible jungle bring the degradation of the city? Or did the degradation of the city bring the invisible jungle? Former Inspector Jarles knows one thing, though. The city’s hunger to survive was greater than that of the invisible animals.
In the city of Civilopolis there is an invisible jungle. Always hungry, always present, it never leaves. In the city of Civilopolis there is a hunger for hope that roars and bellows. As Inspector Jarles now acknowledges his animal, so must the city acknowledge the jungle within it, and neither forget it nor embrace it. To hunger for survival is to live, but to hunger for more than survival is what makes Civilopolis.
Posted by Sam 
