The Sinking City

It's vanishing.

Gradually ceasing to exist.

"The bottom step used to be at the top of the water," Luke tells me, a simple fact that made me sad for reasons I couldn't explain at the time.

I wonder aloud about how the city was built. He tells me the answer. Wooden platforms attached to wooden stakes driven into the ground. 

I imagine all the wood disintegrating, slowly eaten up by the ever hungry water now trying to claim the city itself, too. 

I imagine the city breaking off from its wooden tethers, floating on the surface of the Adriatic until eventually sinking under its own weight. "I want to bring our kids here before it's gone," I tell him. He agrees, even though it'll be years and years. 

The eventuality of its disappearance makes the place all the more tragically beautiful. The water rises, but the city doesn't.