The Molting of the Third District

Fiction

October 12th. The first fissures appeared in the Third District's plaza at dawn. It is a spectacle of nature, certainly, to see the iridescent sheen of the primary mantle emerging through the limestone crust. One could reasonably argue that the sheer majesty of the shedding process justifies the administrative chaos; after all, if the city did not grow, it would eventually succumb to the weight of its own population. From a biological standpoint, the molt is a triumph. From a clerical standpoint, it is a disaster. The sanitation crews are failing. They claim the slime is too adhesive for the standard scrapers; they suggest using caustic salts, but the Ministry of Biology warns that salt triggers an inflammatory response in the Host. If the creature begins to spasm, the entire archive of the Pre-Drift Era will be tossed into the abyss. It is a delicate balance: we must keep the floors dry without irritating the very foundation of our existence. The zoning disputes have already begun. Because the Third District has shifted approximately four meters eastward during the initial peel, the boundary lines for the mercantile stalls now overlap with the public gardens. I spent three hours today explaining to a frantic haberdasher that his shop is not technically encroaching on the greenery, but that the greenery has simply migrated beneath his storefront. It is a curious legal loophole: the land has not moved, but the organism beneath the land has repositioned itself. The ink is the worst part. The humidity brought on by the molt causes the archival ink to bleed. I spent the afternoon blotting the 412th Census with a piece of raw linen, praying that the iridescent seepage does not reach the lower shelves. One cannot help but admire the scale of the metamorphosis, the way the city sheds its skin to grow larger; yet, I find myself wondering why a biological entity must be so dreadfully messy.