| | |
| William Penn being assembled in City Hall court, date unknown |
Let's start over.
He envisions now a small group, three people, amalgams of people he knew once. Three of them. Two male, one female. From a city to the north. The city may not exist either.
They're standing on the traffic median at Broad and Chestnut. A Saturday night. Cars backed up in every direction. People from the suburbs and Jersey looking for Saturday night stuff. Ready to drop some cash downtown. Or will they change their minds and go to AC instead? Certainly possible.
One of the group clutches a scrap of paper. No, it's a photograph. Crinkled and faded: stolen, he's ashamed to admit, from a library in his hometown. The archives in the back. When the librarian's back was turned, he snatched it. As if even then he knew.
The other guy, the taller, long-haired guy, stands behind him, a bit distracted, a bit frustrated, he still doesn't quite understand why they drove all the way down here, when there's so much unfinished business back home. Things they still need to do. His mind is on that stuff now. Any attention he gives to this nonsense is purely accidental.
The young lady stands a few feet away. She's got her notebook out and is concentrating on the movement of her pencil across it. She must still be able to see it, just from the streetlights and the lights from the FYE and Borders.
The guy with the photograph just keeps staring at it, then looks up at City Hall.
It's a photograph of the William Penn statue being assembled. Date unknown. Some workers stare out at the camera. They look a little bored with the job; it wasn't clear to them what significance this grotesquely enormous thing had. Why they had to hoist it such a long way up. They probably wanted to go home to their wives, or go out for a beer. They had no conception they were putting up something that people would stare at every day, pass by on their way to work, for decades to come. The William Penn statue! As familiar as an old friend. How could they have known?
The guy with the photograph looks back at the others.
"That's where we need to be," he says.
"I don't understand," says the taller guy. "That photograph is from over a hundred years ago -"
"It's not like that," the guy with the photograph says. "I don't know what you've heard in books, but time doesn't just go in every direction randomly for no reason. It's not like that. Time is linear. And time travel doesn't just happen, you can't just go wherever and whenever you want. You need a nexus. A . . . a focal point."
He holds up the photograph again and compares it to the completed statue far above them. He hears the cars driving past, the groups of kids crossing in front of them, the gangs of girls in their Saturday night dresses and high heels. He senses his friends behind them, waiting, in their own ways, for him to take some action.
"And that's it," he says quietly. "He would have designed the city so it all . . . it all points to this. It all comes back here." He points at City Hall again, not sure how to explain the rest of it, how the past and the future were here as well, right next to the present, right next to them. Philadelphias old and new and not even imagined yet. William Penn being assembled, William Penn old and forgotten, the real William Penn still alive, riding around his city in a hansom cab or whatever he used. All of them together, at the same time.
He might have read that in a book once as well.
"Let's go," he says, tucking the photograph into a pocket, and stepping right into the center of Chestnut Street.
They cross right over to the other median. When they get there, he feels a tap on his shoulder and stops.
She's showing him what she drew.
She didn't have much time, but even hastily it's a nice little sketch, detailed where it needs to be - it's the top of City Hall, the clock face, the outline of William Penn, one hand outstretched, blessing the city, or maybe dropping something - he could never tell exactly what Penn's supposed to be doing there.
They all stare at the drawing for a moment.
"It's beautiful," says the taller guy.
She just nods.
Philadelphia, PA
10/18/07 - 2/5/08
Back to main page.