City Pier: Above and Below is a novella in four stories:

From Meat's Story:

Even after all the years working for Harry, the sheer monstrosity of the Pier never failed to humble me, even depress me a bit. That maze of stripped but still standing sequoia trees, with those trunks as thick as buildings, with those branches molded into the intricate lattice of support beams and struts, that practically infinite network of wood that went for hundreds of feet above the water and for miles and miles along the jagged coastline. Seeing the Pier from the outside is different than being in it. I know. It’s like looking at a mountain-sized cathedral that you knew you’d never enter. You stood and stared at it, its odd beauty with its crazy angles stretching to the sky and you admired the mind-numbing design and you ached to go in and be part of it. But it also looked dark, alien, like it shouldn’t be there, and meeting the folks inside it or meeting the folks who had built it or meeting the reason, the why, the who this thing was built for was the last thing you wanted to do, and that was the only thing in your life that was a certainty. But you didn’t walk away. You just stood, stuck in an infinite loop, and stared and stared and stared.

That was what it was like to see City Pier from the beach. Being inside the Pier, inside the monster? You’re a hopelessly lost blood cell that doesn’t know if it’s in a vein or an artery or a capillary and can’t find its way to the heart.

That dead forest beneath City.

From Dole As Ribbit:

There’s only one Catholic Church in City compared to fifteen Temples of the Pier. But it’s a big sucker. A magnificent wood, brick, and marble cathedral, five stories tall. I do a morning and evening mass Monday through Saturday, only a handful of old biddies attend those, and then four Sunday masses. More folks attend the Sundays, but it doesn’t take a mind reader to know that most don’t want to be there: you’ve got the brats Grandma dragged to the service, they kick the pews and fold the prayer booklets into funky shapes, then you have the cold-fishes, the ones that just sit there and don’t say the prayers or sing the songs during mass, their faith doesn’t extend past the weekly ritual, the Sunday habit they just can’t kick even though they don’t believe in it anymore. Those people depress me. They’re too much like me.

Four Dominican Brothers, each in their sixties, take care of the church maintenance, prepare my readings and homilies, and look after the rectory. I don’t want to spend too much time talking about them. But I will add that they don’t like me very much. I guess they don’t approve of my lifestyle. Can’t please everybody.

I just hope none of the old boys come snooping into my room. I’m going to leave Mushhead here while I go blow off some steam at the Boutique.

“Dole as ribbit,” he says. He’s lying in a pull-out cot that’s as far away from my bed as possible in my cramped room. His voice sounds weak, muffled by the brick walls.

“Shut up,” I say through gritted teeth. I inspect my off-duty outfit. Black cowboy boots with a small gun tucked safely in the right boot, black-lens night-glasses, blue jeans, white button-down shirt, and a black leather overcoat only partially cinched at the waist.

Mushhead stops talking but is still smiling. Maybe his brain is fried on red-lion or zionblast or, my favorite, nephomene.

Or fried on guilt. A man can hope...

From The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from A History of the Longesian Library:

---From page 3, ninth paragraph:

Annotte is generally regarded as the birthplace of City. A common debate, even heard among the populace walking City’s streets, is whether the Pier was built before Annotte or somehow built underneath the existing City-section. Compelling anecdotal evidence of Annotte being populated with pillars and spires and other rotund architectures—many of the buildings seemingly Pier-like—is used to argue both sides. While Annottites wear their ancient and mysterious City Pier heritage as a badge, it’s the Balloons that infect their everyday lives, despite the nineteen-year period between occurrences.

Its cobblestone streets and quaint shops are so unspoiled by comparison to the rest of City. Annotte, decades ago declared the historical section of City, has been seemingly inoculated against the technological onslaught and organized crime encroachment. As a boy who grew up in Annotte (and now as an adult who longs to again make that quaint place his home), I remember the pride, the reverence with which we spoke of our Annotte, even during the anxious weeks leading up to the only Balloon occurrence I experienced.

---From page 4, eighth paragraph:

I wish I could speak to common folklore regarding the Balloons, because there’s very little common among the many tales and legends surrounding the Balloons other than their appearing every nineteen years on the nineteenth day of December. Whether the Balloons are to be laughed at, ignored, feared, or welcomed depends upon whom you ask. Not a particularly religious section of City, yet Annottites seem to find their religion every nineteen years.

Obviously, I do not fear the Balloons. But neither am I a zealot or enthusiast. However, I do fear the mobs. One such ruinous group takes to the streets and tears apart any person who dares announce they see a Balloon, or any person claiming to be chosen as a Balloon recipient. Like the torch-and-pitchfork-wielding peasants in Shelley’s Frankenstein this mob’s goal is to keep the occurrence from happening. In addition, as has been the case historically, a second mob patrols the streets displaying any number of bizarre prayers and home-grown incantations supposedly to aid the coming of the Balloons while violently clashing with anyone who voices a dissenting view. Throughout Annotte’s recorded history, mob and riot casualties have increased with each occurrence. Which is why I shall be an impartial observer, overlooking Annotte from the relative safety of my library roof. The Longesian abuts Annotte, and from the roof, there’s a wondrous view of the ancient City-section.

From She Wants To Be Saved:

Fire in her veins, hot and greedy enough to consume bone. It fills her, pushes against her boundaries, tightens and stretches her skin. But Fire makes her lighter. Fire cleanses, taking her away from the bloody shirt and dirty tub and cracked mirror and missing wall-tiles, away from the two bodies, away from Bill and her choice, and carries her back underneath City to the Pier. This time she's where she has never been before, above where she's never been able to reach. She's at the top, pinned to City's underside like a lost balloon hugging the ceiling, avoiding all stretched-out fingers, big or small. She's a barnacle on City's sub-floor, lost and blind in smog and ocean clouds. It's good she's alone and can't see anything; it's better this way. But she can't help herself. She reaches out for something, not sure what exactly, and touches rotten wood, covered in mildew and mold and slime. She is not surprised the shaky hands of decay and rot hold up City.

Her breathing is ragged, like an exposed lie, and her heart trips off 4-4 timing into a complicated jazz-shuffle that tightens up her chest and dims things a bit. Her body is in trouble, but she is relaxed and calm and warm. The Fire has always been warm but it has never been enough. Maybe this time it will be. Maybe this time she’ll become ash.

There’s water on her cheeks; tears, or condensation from the cloud pinned against City’s underside. The cloud like grey matter pushing against a skull.

Then she falls. Slow. She passes through the cloud cover and she can see, but she has no body. No hands that reach, no eyes to shut, no mouth that screams or kisses or whispers words that might be important, that might save somebody, even herself.