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Council Record No. 1074-B

Subject: Debate on the Existence of the City
Transcript (Extracted and Redacted)

Council of six convened in the ██ year of Mayor A—’s term.

The City’s borders continue to shift. Whispers of another City have begun to circulate. The lower streets loosen their spirals.

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COUNCILLOR F—: (Adjusting his spectacles)
I propose the motion that the City exists, in the simplest of terms. The structures are real; our feet fall on the ██████ daily. How can we doubt what is in front of us?

COUNCILLOR S—: (Sitting upright, her brow furrowed)
You misunderstand the ████ of the City. To propose its existence is to suggest uncertainty. To propose it is merely to assume its permanence — an assumption which has long been tested, but never confirmed.

COUNCILLOR V—: (Quietly, almost to herself)
If it were not real, then where would we be? Can we even imagine a place that is not this?

COUNCILLOR H—: (Interrupting, with a thin smile)
I think it less a question of where we are than of what we are. The City is a confluence of architecture, belief, and circumstance. No more or less than a ██ in the fabric of time. Its walls are a ████████, as is the belief in its continuity.

COUNCILLOR I—: (Nodding slowly)
A place, yes. A place defined not by edges, but by the space between.

COUNCILLOR O—: (Abruptly rising, casting a glance around the room)
An illusion. A construct. And yet, for all our complaints, it remains. We walk its streets, we breathe its air, and still we are drawn back to its ██ ████. The City is an illusion we have all agreed to inhabit.

COUNCILLOR F—: (His voice firm, rising with passion)
And yet, that illusion feeds us. It shelters us. We are not a people living in the uncertain ████ of nowhere! The Council, despite its many reservations, governs a reality. We are surrounded by ██████, and stone does not lie.

COUNCILLOR S—: (Leaning forward, quietly)
I would ask: if the stone does not lie, why do we find ourselves forever adding to it? Why do we continue to carve, build, and expand when the original shape of the City is already ██? What are we creating, if not another layer to conceal the truth beneath?

COUNCILLOR H—: (Softly, almost as if to no one in particular)
Perhaps the truth is in the forgetting, not in the remembering. Perhaps it is the very act of ████, of repeating, that is what makes the City more real than any static image of it could be.

COUNCILLOR I—: (Looking at the floor, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair)
Perhaps that is why the City persists. In its perpetual ███, it becomes. It cannot remain in the past, nor can it anchor itself in the future. It must constantly drift forward, in a state of constant becoming.

COUNCILLOR F—: (Frustrated, raising his hand as if to stop the conversation)
Enough philosophical musings. What is it, then? If not the City, then what is this place? The streets? The people?

COUNCILLOR O—: (Quiet, but with an unsettling calm)
The problem is not with the City; the problem lies with us. We are each of us complicit in its existence, even if we never agreed to it. We are bound to it through our very awareness of it. And if we stop questioning, we are forever caught in the ████.

(There is a long silence. Councillors shift in their seats, some clearing their throats. Outside, the wind begins to rise, rattling the windowpanes.)

COUNCILLOR S—: (Rubbing her chin)
Perhaps it is best that we don’t resolve this question. There are dangers in certainties. As long as we continue to dwell in the space of questioning, we are allowed to adapt, to shape the City to our will. But should we arrive at an answer — should we accept its reality — then we would cease to be.

COUNCILLOR V—: (Blinking, then speaking loudly, as if struck by the weight of the statement)
A ceasing to be? Is that what you propose?

COUNCILLOR S—: (Coldly)
No. What I propose is that the City is not ours to define. The moment we declare it “real,” we lose our agency. We become its prisoners.

(A deep, unsettling silence fills the room. A distant bell tolls somewhere in the City. It echoes for a long moment, reaching across the council chamber.)

COUNCILLOR F—: (With a final, forceful tone)
Then I move to vote. Does the City exist? I say yes. It exists in every breath we take, in every stone we lay. We must acknowledge its presence, for only through acknowledgment can we shape it.

COUNCILLOR O—: (Firmly)
And I say it does not. For to acknowledge the City is to surrender our selves to it.

COUNCILLOR H—: (Calmly, after a pause)
If the motion is put to a vote, I shall abstain. For I believe that the answer lies not in our decisions, but in our acceptance of the question.

(The vote is called, the Council members casting their ballots. The tally is not recorded. The record is marked with a red stamp: “INCONCLUSIVE.”)

COUNCILLOR I—: (After the vote, quietly speaking to no one in particular)
Perhaps it is the lack of answer that keeps us ███. Perhaps that is the true function of the City: not to exist, but to remain.

(The session adjourns. The Council will meet again in another fortnight.)