A Boat Glides Softly…
Peering into the sweeping black of night I see a vessel carrying people. When I crane forward to get a better glimpse, it is gone. I gazed into the future seeing what shall come. But it has already come.
A moment before the world felt safe. Now dusk takes hold of the horizon, and that same blackness swiftly approaches. Color drains from the weeping sky and the fate of the world grows clear. The iceberg has struck and only the Few may survive while so many perish.
So many.
A choice made fifty years ago unleashed a torrent of devastation. Half a century transpired within the single flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. Gossamer were those aviators hovering in the stillness of time. They are gone. The skies no longer recognize flight. Smoke from the fires vanished that reality.
It was that decision, really, that turned the tide. They knew what they were doing. Earth spoke through Water Protectors. It wailed through Thunberg. We buried them all in steel graves. Our Mother even prayed for herself upon the plains at the foot of rivers atop the mountain peaks all crucified by machinery. Water is life but profit snapped the neck of life. Profit wrought death.
The health of an economy conquered our world. They knew the consequences of their actions and still the choice was made to dwell in the slime. Sacrifice all for profit. They have succeeded. Oil men sat upon commissions to revive the same planet they had already distinguished. With machines they clawed at the veins of the Earth and extracted their precious finds. It was all Earth could do to rage and unleash the horrors of hurricanes and wildfires and flooding. The Few conjured a God who declared all was dust and to dust all shall return. Earth never believed in such a lie. And yet the Few damned the planet to dust for they refused to die gracefully. Death would be paired with more death.
Vast darkness has overtaken the sky. Night is nearly upon us. At any moment I understand what will pass before me. Yet, there is time to act. The boat has not passed. The Others have been slumbering throughout the day, but they are beginning to awake. Nightmares quelled them from their stillness.
We are rather powerful. If the Few can destroy this planet in fifty years than perhaps the Others may save it in a matter of moments. Can we dare refuse the lies they proffer? A child cries out to all that we must. The child is raped and discarded like a wrapper shredded by trembling hands. The Few cannot allow the people to taste the iron of the kids who die. The Others shudder and are ravaged by what they see. Still, a fact is gleamed.
The hand trembles.
A smoky layer of sapphire lays flat against the ground of the Earth, pressed to the dirt by the encroaching darkness. Nightfall has arrived and we have fought bitterly, but defeat looms shortly ahead. In a final desperation millions of the Others march through the streets pulling out hair and holding signs far above their heads shouting for justice. The executives could not read the signs from the top floors of their offices. The Few scoffed at the ruckus. Traffic could have been better, they sigh.
Soon after events turned violent. Machines began to break in the dead of night. Limbs locked limbs to the machines that continued to run. Buildings crumbled in stoking flames filling the city air with ash. In response the shots began to ring out. All turned quiet except the bodies thumping against the street. Death sounded like hail colliding with the ground. Crushed to the earth, never to rise again.
All color is drained from the sky. All is blackness. The moon and stars now unable to penetrate the thick clouds of smoke and ozone clogging the airways of the sky. The final droplet of day is buried. With the light gone from their eyes the Others panic. They begin to revolt. A final measure against impending extinction. The Few are too strong. They trample upon the Others as a bear once crushed insects while romping across the forest floor. They drop the bombs. Light footfalls for those living in the clouds, entire cities filled to the brim with people evaporated in seconds. Those that survived fled marked with treason.
The rest were burned in giant holes.
Have all efforts been futile? I dare not look into the sky for I know what I shall see. Eyes clenched closed are forced open and I see the mark of failure. A boat glides softly.
I see the Few aboard this vessel. They are huddled close in temerity. Fear creeps atop their faces screaming out into the dark, “I must be saved.” How may those who wrought this destruction upon the Earth be afraid? It cannot be allowed! In our darkest hour the beacon of hope arrived to spirit away the evil of the world. Who shall survive this calamity? The filth of the world. Darkness has defeated light. All gains lost as the arc of the universe is forced to bend in the opposite direction like an arm snapped to misconfiguration.
The rich soar through the galaxy to locate another planet. Those who never knew what it meant to be refugees find themselves fleeing home. Lazy stomachs ache for the first time and idle hands move quickly and commit many errors. Friends and family turn against another. War assaults the peaceful. Discomfort flails at the comfortable. We are all that is left, the Few acknowledge.
Aboard their vessel some consider this expedition. Through fluttering eyelids a child watches the earth incinerate from thousands of miles away. Fireworks marking the independence of evil. Cruelty at last unchecked. But still, a Pyrrhic victory. In the absence of an enemy even cruelty fades away. We are all that is left.
