There's this one spot, when I'm walking towards town on a certain road. Where you come down off the hill at an angle, looking out over the river at the bulk of the town. At that point, purely because of a trick of the angle, a trick of perception, parts of the town appear to align/connect with other parts that they do not, in reality, actually connect with. The line of the ridge above the river valley seems to run about 30 degrees off from what it does in actuality, St Mary's Church seems to be directly connected by a road (to judge from the rooflines) up to the copper-roofed building at the top of the town (I've actually no idea what that building it, it's just very prominent on the hill, with the distinct green roof). In reality, there are actually two roads running crossways between them, and no direct links at all.
Which is random babbling on specifics, maybe. The point is. At this one point, coming into the town, every time I walk through, I get two distinct, specific images of the town. The one that appears just at this one spot, the diagonal-to-reality town, and the one in my memory, the actual town. Layered on top of each other, two maps overlaid on an image, creating a weird, half-way sensation.
There are other spots like that, in other towns. In the city where I went to college, there was this one spot, by the park, where you looked down the tree-lined road down into the city, and a trick of perception put the green domes of St Francis' (churches are wonderful landmarks, by the by) up against the bluffs on the other side of the river, which are in actuality around half a mile distant. In the evening, especially, it created the bizarre sensation that you were looking at a different, rather foreign city, something strangely mediterranean-looking. *smiles faintly*
They're just tricks of perception, those spots. Just angles, giving the illusion of something different lying superimposed over something familiar. Towns and cities layered across each other, one in memory, one in front of you, one in actuality, one in illusion. Just tricks, that's all they are.
But they give me ... a sensation, sometimes. Green-orange, heavy. I have to stand, sometimes, and just stare, just hold the feel of that other city/town in my head, hold the two images over each other, and feel the ... Potential? *nods* Feel the potential of them.
When I was younger, I used to hang upside-down over the garden wall, or off the top bar of the swing-set, and look out over the road. Seeing how oddly different it made it, grey-white and strange. Because the world doesn't look the same, upside-down, the directions don't seem to connect the way you think they should, and while you're hanging there, it looks like a different world. A strange and new place you haven't explored. A mirror-world, slightly off true.
It's the same with those places. Those odd junctures of angle and illusion that make familiar places look strange, those green-orange moments where it feels like the bridge onto another world, laid just an angle off this one. Where something so familiar to you that you don't even see it anymore is suddenly different, new, strange, exciting. Where you look, and look, and keep looking, because if you move, or look away, that other town, that other city, that other world, will disappear. Even if you know that all you have to do is stand in that place again, and you'll see it again. There are moments where it feels ... too strange and too fragile to let go of.
*smiles* If magic were real, if those other worlds were real worlds, then those places would be the places where you'd step over. The bridges, where you'd cross. And for some reason, because of that, the magic of translation/transportation is, in my head, a strange orange-green. *smiles faintly at self*
The world hides little tricks for you, little gems, tucked into random angles, little folds in itself. Tricks of perception. That's all. But 'all', I think, in this case, is ... still something special. Heh.
*shrugs* Forgive the slightly random digression, won't you? *smiles*
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