Diem

Moderately high walls of brick, dusty, warm to the touch, coated with moss on the entry and exit points; gates forged long ago, never refurbished or reenforced, now rusted in fair weather. Diem, a place you've been to, a place I've been too, shamelessly unremarkable but a landmark for it's history: implicit and barely known in even the oldest minds. Tourist come and go through narrow streets, chaotic, driven here by a beauty forgotten and away from evidence it was better this way. From the east to the west, the north to the south, not a cloud in the sky or a resident lacking smiles. Not a thing to do in this quiet town, mayhap that's where we're wrong. Where the ancient architecture from the plain one-story houses to the statues of heroes passed fail, the chapels, the cathedrals, the places of spiritual enlightenment and community are very much alive. It lives through the people, at first hesitant to speak on that inner why, brought up and respected, discussed with a nuance many deem impossible, yet coming from the collective itself. The peeking grass through sometimes clear, sometimes stone, and other time muddy cobble adding depth, adding a flower to every exploration along side a new path--endlessly providing entertainment in spite of similarities in the corridors. They broaden further in, wide and spacious, vacant for the most part aside from the casual chirping intruders. Questions, theories of the spectacles seen stir primary impressions, molding them to complex, sharp shapes with a new monastery, temple, organization bound in this unspoken harmonious brotherhood. Magic, fortune, traditions with no origin, enlightening and engaging tales with no novel, broken and almost demolished artifacts abandoned--undisturbed all accumulate into a silent, yet sound culture; nothing losing or vacant of value, yet feeling better off the way they are found. It's beyond a mutual respect for the place. Most never understand the origin of their aloofness, the eye of the world is left a notable mark in finding peace with the mystery that is themselves, the town, and the world around them.