If existence in all its moments is all of itself, Zoe is the place of indivisible existence. But why, then, does the city exist?
Note
In other cities every activity has its place: the palace, the prison, the mint, the Pythagorean school, the brothel. In Zoe the traveller cannot tell the places apart: every point is good for sleeping, making tools, cooking, hoarding gold coins, undressing, reigning, selling, questioning oracles. Any pyramid roof could cover the lepers’ hospital or the odalisques’ baths.
The scene is a spread of identical houses, each with a pyramid roof and a door. The activities of life, a bed, an anvil, a pot, a throne, a tripod, wander from door to door; nothing stays where it was. Towards the edge the houses thin into the steppe, where the wolves roam.
Touch a house: it passes through every activity, twice, and settles on none. Touch the steppe: a wolf howls, and those walking nearby turn to look out. What line separates the inside from the outside?
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.