The City

Lore & Background

The source article does not mention the video game *Flower* or any video game development, publisher, or platform.

In Their Own Story

The first gust finds the flower alone on a cracked sidewalk, its stem bent low, petals closed. Around it, the City is the colour of old ash. A lamppost juts from the pavement, its glass clouded. The flower lifts—just slightly—on a thermal rising off the warm stone, and for a moment the dust on the lamppost stirs, revealing a flash of amber beneath. It drifts forward, through a gap between two buildings whose facades are streaked with rust and grime. A single petal lies on a windowsill ahead, half-buried. The flower brushes past it. The petal opens, tucks itself behind, and the pair drift on. The next block is cleaner. The next, cleaner still. By the third intersection the sky above the rooftops has shifted from flat grey to a pale, uncertain blue, and the building across the street shows, for the first time, the true red of its tile work. The flower does not stop. It does not need to. The City is waking up, and it is enough to be the reason.

Reader's Guide

The source article does not provide a guide.

Did You Know?

• The City is a term for the City of London, the historic core of London.
• Istanbul has been known as 'the city' in the past.
• The City is a 1925 book by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess.
• The City is a 1990–2014 comic strip by Derf Backderf.