The ancients drove the first of the stakes that were
eventually to become Venice
in to the slimy lagoon sediment. Since then the city has been made up of two
half cities- one unable to survive without the other.

The city is sinking.

The inhabitants fight back by reversing their world. Lives
run upside down as breakfast is taken on the roof between chimneys, dogs are
kennelled in attics and pianos are hauled through upstairs windows.

They would like to think that they will time and again be
able to defend their island home, to ride out the storms that deposit offerings
of plastic bottles and dead seaweed on their doorsteps.

They would like to think they will outlive the menace of the
drip that falls from a beam in the attic and slowly trickles towards others
also searching for a downwards channel that will return them to the water.

If necessary they will defend their city for years. If
necessary they will defend their city alone.

Even though large tracts of the city, and many old and
eminent buildings have fallen into the grip of the day trippers who flock to
see this ambiguous miracle suspended above the lapping tide of the lagoon.

Even though the odious apparatus of tourism gains rule inch
by inch every day, they shall not flag or fail.

Meanwhile down below the city sinks under its own pavements
as one layer of paving stones succeeds the other in a race against the
up-creeping water.

Should the tide recede, it would lay bare a skeleton city, a
cavernous system of interconnected tunnels, arches, balustrades and columns- a
forest of petrified trees all nibbled by the fish. But as the aquatic half
remains covered, it is the drier half of the city that is more fragile.

Cracks creep up to the top floors of the buildings.

This half of the city is preparing to return itself to the
sulphurous sludge on which it has stood patiently for so long.