Fantastic Metropolis

The city at the edge of the dead plain was a lackluster place, as it featured no site of aesthetic or historical importance, but a steady stream of travelers, especially those with a penchant for puzzles and marvels, visited the place on account of the woman they called Lady Faraway. She was named that because she could only be seen far away, sitting somewhere upon the walls of the city, contemplating the empty world beyond with a sad expression. Because of her considerable and unchanging beauty, many young men throughout the ages tried to reach her, climbing over roofs and walls for days in order to ascertain that she was not some phantom of an ideal. Yet, even as they approached her still form, she would mysteriously be moved to a distance, never stirring from her position. Concerted efforts by groups of obsessed admirers came to nothing as her image always managed to elude them. During my brief stay in the city, I heard no less than five stories of who she was and how she came to be Lady Faraway.

The first story claimed that as beautiful as she was when seen from a distance, she was even more so at close range. In fact, she possessed beauty of such magnitude that every man who came near and beheld her, fell instantly and madly in love. When the fair girl that she was blossomed into a woman of perfection, she realized that she lived under a terrible curse, as her life became filled with endless admiration that often turned into desperate threats of kidnapping and rape. The distraught woman appealed to her guardian angel for deliverance from her unbearable condition, begging for the relief of homeliness. The angel wanted to help her without spoiling God’s workmanship of her form, a most magnificent demonstration of His art, so he turned her into Lady Faraway, still admired but at a safe distance.

The second story claimed that she was in reality a rather plain woman, who only seemed beautiful at a distance. The joke about her was that she was fair from afar but far from fair. As she was also extremely vain and became frustrated at having men chase after her, only to become disillusioned when they came near and turn away, she summoned the Devil, promising to give him her soul if he would make her the most admired woman in the city. The Evil One, being who he is, tricked her by making her Lady Faraway, indeed admired by all but because she can only be seen from far away.

The third story denied that she was or ever had been a real woman. Before the city was built, the site was originally occupied by four small villages that grew until they became interconnected. Their leaders eventually agreed to unite and form a single city, erecting a wall around it for protection from the marauders of the plain. When the work was completed, a serious disagreement arose as to where to put up the statue of the city’s patron goddess, as it was believed that proximity to it brings fortune and citizens from each of the original villages insisted that it be placed in their area. The issue threatened to lead to civil war, until a mysterious traveler appeared at the city’s gate and offered a solution. The stranger, who some say was an ingenious craftsman, and others a powerful magician, described a device that could move the statue around the city walls, away from the approach of people. The price he asked for its construction was exorbitant, but all saw it as an acceptable one for avoiding strife. After a time, the people became less superstitious and lost faith in the power of the statue, turning the image of the goddess into that of an earthly woman in their imagination.

The fourth story also denied the reality of the woman, claiming that it was a clever optical illusion created by the philosophers of the city to demonstrate the nature of truth for their students. ‘Truth is like a beautiful woman you can never catch up to, no matter how long you may chase after her,’ the greatest among the city’s thinker once said, ‘but whose fairness keeps you in thrall, as you contemplate it from afar and sigh’.

The fifth and final story I heard about the identity of Lady Faraway disclaimed the idea that she was an illusion, but also that she was a real woman living in the city. The strange mystics who lived as hermits outside the walls believed that it was the city that was unreal, that the woman was sitting somewhere in the real world, daydreaming of the place by the dead plain and the people who lived in it. The moment she is disturbed from her reverie and stops thinking of them, they said, the city and its citizens will all disappear without a trace.

“Lady Faraway” originally appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #11 (November 2002).