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I have grown up inside these walls. There is not a day I remember in which bells did not chime around me, cars did not crawl by in miles of traffic, salespeople did not push themselves against passerby. This is the city my family was placed in at the beginning of time, and it is where I will stay. We are the city people, and that is that. I have heard murmurings of outside communities, ones whose land is free, ones whose land is trees, ones whose lives are on boats. But they do not matter. Never once will I have to leave this serene, unwavering land of peace, never once will I meet the people of alternating races. My sea of brown is all I need. In school we are taught not to question the ways our food is gathered, not to question where the water comes from. So until I was fourteen, I did not know the power of our government.

I did not know how we stripped the trees from the green people.

I did not know how we stripped the river people of their clean water and replaced it with oil.

I did not know how we stripped the farm people of their food and threw out their belongings into pits among barns, and took their men for battles they could not win.

I did not know, and it is too late.