Bellows (part one)

First I built the city. Then I built the river. I normally build rivers before I build their cities. Rivers are more expensive than cities. Building a river through an existing city exponentially escalates expenses, but in this case, I felt the risk was warranted. And though building a river on an untouched piece of land affords me both creative freedom and comparative convenience, I was willing to sacrifice both of these things to do my part for the greater good as well as the profit that seemed, if not promisable, at least possible. I could deal with some measure of short-term nuisance in pursuit of long-term success.

That rivers cost more than cities surprises most first-time city builders. I believe it's the hidden expenses, the ones no project plan or initial estimate can account for, though initial estimates never fail to shock amateurs. There was once a golden age for this sort of thing but I'm afraid there's more soul searching than real city building done these days. A shame. Lacking a variety of ideas, the field suffocates, goes brown. I have done this often enough that I know to expect the unexpected; it's a lesson I've learned the way all good lessons are learned: through failure and repetition. The economy is failing and we are at war; either of these facts alone would raise demand for--while reducing the resources available to--the construction of shiny new cities. Even my most intrepid colleagues, partners, and vendors have been scared by the current state of things back into their holes, where they stoke their accounts in anticipation of the arrival of a more promising time, when they'll all scramble free every which way at once, tripping and trampling each other in their rush to grab the first fresh floating buck. I myself would not have ventured to build so much as a Welcome To sign had not some of my pre-war projects been met with unparalleled, if qualified, success. I'd say my position is the better for it, today.

But yes, I've learned that to cut a corner is to forfeit a square of success. Almost every decision a first-time city builder makes is bad and both they and their work suffer for it. Consider fish. Consider lakes. It's industry tradition that we never account for fish or lakes in our initial cost estimates. Everyone I spoke with the lone idle Sunday I attempted to track down the historical source of this tradition seemed indifferent on the subject; I was a young man, a perpetual optimist, still devoutly religious, still moderately anarchist, still trying to work a goatee. Hope taught me little though the memories make me smile. Now I know well enough that whether or not there's a reason for the way we do business doesn't change the facts of how we do business, and that how we do business is how we do business, and no cause will ever change that effect. Needless to say, the first-time city builder who surmounts the initial obstacle of financing the survey team responsible for selecting the location and size of the necessary lake will come to face the sight of their glittery new river as if through the filter of their drastically shrunken bank account. Inevitably they opt to "hold off on" putting fish into the water, once they realize that fish are the exact opposite of cheap. But fish are not luxury items. Fish and lakes breathe meaning into rivers. Citizens today might never see the fish but they know when the fish are missing. Fishless waters birth nothing but ghost towns and suicides.