Subtle Cities. 5.

If you wish to believe me, you may. I shall now tell you how Octavia, city of spiderwebs, is made. There is a precipice halfway between two vertiginous mountains: the city is over the empty space, secured to the two peaks with ropes and chains and hanging bridges. You walk on the wood slats, careful not to place your foot into the gaps, or you grab on to the hemp meshwork. Underneath, for hundreds upon hundreds of meters, there is nothing: a few clouds roll by, below which you might catch a glimpse of the ravine’s bottom.

This is the city’s base: a net that functions as both thoroughfare and support. The rest of the city, rather than rising above, hangs suspended below: rope ladders, hammocks, sacklike houses, coat racks, terraces like gondolas, waterskins, gas valves, rotisserie spits, baskets hung by strings, dumb-waiters, showers, trapeze bars and rings for games, cable cars, chandeliers, vases sprouting pendulous leaves.

Suspended over the abyss, life for the inhabitants of Octavia is less uncertain than in other cities. They know that sooner or later the net will fail to hold.