In Olinda, he who goes out with a magnifying glass and hunts carefully may find somewhere a point no bigger than the head of a pin which, if you look at it slightly enlarged, reveals within itself the roofs, the antennas, the skylights, the gardens, the pools, the streets.
Note
Olinda grows like a tree, in concentric rings. In other cities the old walls stay put at the centre, buried under newer layers; in Olinda the old walls expand instead, carrying the oldest quarters with them, enlarged but true to their own proportions, on an ever wider horizon. Whoever hunts with a magnifying glass finds, somewhere, a city no bigger than the head of a pin: look at it only slightly enlarged and its roofs, antennas, skylights and gardens appear.
The scene builds a single city, only once: a ring of walls, houses roofed in terracotta, verdigris gardens, a few thin antennas. Seven copies of that same ring, each simply larger than the last, hang suspended one inside the other like the rings of a trunk. Time adds nothing and takes nothing away: it only grows each ring, steadily, until the outermost dissolves into the haze and a new one buds at the centre, minuscule.
There is no lens: each ring, as it grows, climbs a little up the side of a bowl, and the city turns slowly, so the oldest walls rise past your gaze while a new one opens at the bottom. It feels like sinking, for ever, into the middle. Touch a ring and for a moment it glows, as if someone had rested their gaze on it; touch the centre, where the city is still a pinhead, and watch a new one bud. Olinda has no final shape: only, always, the next one.
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.