Chloe

Chloe is a city that has never seen sunlight. A quirk of fate finds her located in a valley so steep that even summer's apex affords only a teasing hint of Sol's outer radiation.

The people of Chloe know this and know it better than they know themselves - that the sun will leave them little more than scattered ash and smoking shoes if it somehow crosses their path, or they its. Generation after generation has shared stories of foolhardy souls who ventured over the rise of the hill, never to return again - victims of their own misguided bravado.

The more adventurous children, emboldened by mutual egging, will venture up the face of the steep northern hill in winter, chatting gaily at first and twittering with nervous anticipation, but growing more sombre as they near the top. The silence that soon envelopes them, vibrating with the fear that a mistaken step could see them perish, reinforces the perilous nature of their venture.

A narrow outcrop of rock near the top marks the outermost limit of their courage, a demarcation of their destiny. The breeze carrying with it perfumed warning of sunshine's imminence warns them not to go any further. They heed this warning above all others.

They leave their offerings - carved figures, small stones and bright beads, short pieces of coloured string. These they add to the growing pile of tokens, humble gestures to the absent yet ever-present sun.

Chloe may not have seen the sun, but don't think it's no less in her thoughts than for the rest of us. Quite the converse is in fact true. Everything about her can be related, in ways small and not so small, to their troubled relationship. Her people - pale, drawn figures, sallow of skin though remarkably cool of temperament - spend long hours in thought and conversation about the day of its eventual return.

They know it will happen. Many, indeed, secretly hope it will be in their time, but nobody will say as much. They know it will mean the end of them all, of life as they know it, but it has long had such a command over their life that the desire to finally meet this maker is so magnetic their dreams are richly soaked in bright golden licks of flame and combustion.

There is, of course, a time when the people of Chloe are reunited with the sun. In death they are sent to her and become part of her. Wrapped in crisp, unused, pure white sheets, they wait. A pyre is built. Amidst incantations from family members, the body is placed into the heart of the dancing flames. The soul of the deceased, until then trapped in the body, joins the smoke spiralling skyward. They watch as it passes high above the city, reaching the top of the hill and mingling with the sun's light, entwining and joining her.

This is why she will return one day - to see the city from which she has come, to return home. For she is entirely of Chloe - she is Chloe's past, she shapes her present and she is her only imaginable future.