Miscellanea from the Lost Quarter and beyond.

Songs of Destruction

The end is coming, closer every day. The entropy of all things, heavy as gravity, pulling apart. The knowledge sits there now, present in a way it wasn’t before. Spots on the skin, grey in the hair, unexplained aches that linger. How strange to arrive at this place and without any warning. 

Things mostly haven’t worked out. What can you do? Rage against the dying light, they say. Flail about, a great performance, demanding change. Tell everyone about what is owed, what is due you for having existed in this life. Let them have it. Tear the edifices down to the fabric of existence, only to find we’re just left with ourselves. Poor company. 

The ruins rise out of the jungle, stones carefully placed together some hundreds of years ago, still standing. A triumph of engineering and imagination. Takes the breath away still to stand on those stairs and realize that centuries ago others did the same, just going about their lives. Until they didn’t.  

Everyone looks for the cataclysm that ended these ancient places, but mostly people just drifted away. Things changed. Crises arrived at inopportune times and rulers failed in the ways that rulers do and thousands became hundreds became dozens. The edifices that remained became too much to maintain and those people left too. For other places and other lives. Maybe less wondrous ones, maybe ones with more hardship. Somewhere they could build again.