Under the eye of the satellite, hundreds of millions of pairs of feet enter the city in the morning as oxygen and are expelled in the evening as carbon dioxide. The streets expand in proportion to how many feet they must accommodate (this data is painstakingly collected by our network of cameras and sensors). The streets swell just before the work day begins, shrink over the course of eight hours (with a slight hiccup at noon), and swell up again before dinner. The citizens of the city don't notice the streets expanding beneath their feet, for the only know what is directly in front of them, and they never feel compelled to look out their windows at their surroundings for longer than is necessary. For all they know, the streets are the same size no matter if they're walking, eating, talking, having sex, running on the treadmill, sitting at their computers, analyzing the innocuous behaviors of strangers they'll never see again, using the bathroom, the same way no one can feel the spinning of Earth on its axis. Situated on an island that is longer than it is wide, the city looks like a squirming larva in my monitor, or a single lung tethered to smaller and weaker organs by strings. The orbiting organs don't throb with the same vigor, in fact they're rather pathetic to look at, shriveling up like leaky water balloons, offering nothing meaningful besides more bodies to fill the skyscrapers.

There's been an air of panic and confusion among my colleagues for the past week or so. Sections of the electrical grid have been sporadically flickering on and off. The data from our cameras and sensors in some small portions of the city is now inaccurate, rendered completely useless. A kind of cancerous growth appears to be spreading from what were once thought to be inorganic materials. Left unchecked, the streets will shrink down to their original size, never intended for hundreds of millions of people. I don't fear the choking and crushing of hordes, the bodies having nowhere else to pile but up, the blood juiced out of their pores and filtered through the storm drains. I fear the moment they step outside and notice that the world has no reaction to them. I pity them, I guess. They won't topple the skyscrapers, they will shrug their shoulders and collectively agree that they deserve it. I know this because I know they don't respect themselves. They will hold out their arms to imitate Christ, embracing the cleansing cold squeeze. I wish they would just let themselves be animals again.