Sim City
by Barn-Yen Li
(published in ‘Res Ipsa Loquitur’, The Arts Magazine of Western Law 2001/2002, University of Western Ontario)
oh my Sims
my people
i build for you
a city, a city
of Sims, by Sims,
for Sims
see my careful,
carefully drawn
zones
my roads your roads
live! shop! work!
and multiply
make my city
your SimCity
great
growing
i give you power
plants and fire
protection and
hospitals and
water pumps and
subways and trains
and a downtown
and a marina
and no disasters
oh, won’t you grow?
i lower taxes, impose
parking fines
think abotu building
a library,
a park of statues -
what else do you need?
more commerce?
more aurports?
more trains, highways,
taxicabs?
tell me! i’ll do it
anything to bring
you up to a million
or so
i’m so lonely
does it really take
two centuries
to grow into a
metropolis? i
don’t have that
long
but then again
maybe i do
i’m not a Sim
i live while you
my Sims live and
die live and die
i’ll be mayor
forever
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transistion thats troublesome -Isaac Asimov