Anyone who arrives there on a September evening, when the days are growing shorter and the multicolored lamps are lighted all at once at the doors of the food stalls and from a terrace a woman’s voice cries ooh!, feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time.
Note
Diomira has sixty silver domes, bronze statues of all the gods, streets paved with lead, a crystal theatre, a golden cock that crows each morning on a tower. The traveller knows all these beauties already from other cities. Its special quality is something else: a September evening, lamps lit all at once, a woman crying out from a terrace.
Here the city has a double: beside Diomira floats the same Diomira, barely drawn, its lamps already lit. It is the evening identical to this one that someone believes they have lived, and it never quite coincides with the present.
Touch the city: the two evenings fall into line, every lamp comes on at once and the woman on the terrace raises her arm. Then the memory comes loose and drifts again, a little apart.
Quotations are brief excerpts for the purpose of commentary. The full text is available in published editions. The Cities of Ottavia, Valdrada & the soundtrack are inspired by "Monument Valley" from ustwo games.