I like to write small pieces, perhaps others do too. So I’m creating this thread to this end.
Tonight, I wrote the following short story. Well, more of a poetic allegory…
In The Sight Of Blind Eyes
It is Monday. The sun has risen above the trees, and its beams bless skin and stone with its heat. In the centre of it all, stands a solitary citadel, walled in the midst of a long and lonely lane. Each passing moment blurs far into the next. As the sentry gaze of the citadel creeps, its enveloping shade slithers the city streets; and so man knows every limp and lumber of his daze. In the previous year’s referendum, he voted thus: man will build no more, this city will be his last. He is weary, and even in youth he loses his wit, as his fading eyes watch every precious second slip beyond his grip. He wishes no more for the many beginnings, nor even their many ends – he has forgotten them all – all except one, a single dying end.
As quickly as it shines, as slowly does it fade; the sun rises again over the shade of a misty morning rain, and its heavenly veins curse skin and stone with its stain. Some thousands gather around the citadel. They spiral into the foot of the watery fane, and fondle its damp stone. Beyond the heave and heavy wallow, a thousand yards behind the sight of blind eyes, stands a still man of many ends, just beginning, again. His eyes shine forth in happy despair; as severe is their threat, so seldom are they ever met. His name is Ephysius, his one and only name – a faceless name. As punishment for his many ends and silent nuisance, his father forbade him a family, and forsook him to forgotten estrange.
As the sun sets below the wet dirt of the west, the limp and lumber of the people lugs its stumble all the way home, and into the bliss. An apathy fills the streets, as it casts down a total silence upon them, so now even the many ends of a wandering mind are resigned as miscreant trends. Beneath the blue moon walks Ephysius, too, approaching the long and lonely lane. He beholds the citadel ahead, where even now, in the dim moonlit glow, its looming shade reaches into the deep. He quietly steps through the gates, and stands before the verge of the great arch. The moon beams in from behind a blue tint upon the alter, and his eyes track a fleeting glimpse of the inscriptions within. He considers the truth behind the myth, and why the citadel even exists. Laid bare in plain text, it is written there for all to open their eyes and read, but the myth is all that the blind can see.
Dwarfed by the towering height, he contemplates the gravity of his despair, and finally, he breaks. Crushed by a cosmic sorrow, he falls to his knees and weeps. He yearns for a world full of being and becoming, knowing it as it should be. Hearing the sounds of a wailing whine on the wind, the people of the city slowly creep in. A great concern deludes their reason, for this wailing man is just too present and concrete. Unable to even think, they just cannot allow it to be. The people of the city limp and lumber their stumble back into the streets, and lug it all the way over to him. As Ephysius lay foetal upon the cold brick before them, unable to speak, the people reach out and grasp him, with what remains of their wit, where they take him to the alter, and force him to sit. He gurgles a curdling cry, pleading to the blind, who then murder him in their sleep. He rests now beside his ancestor, as his mortal flesh rots bare on the brick. So the end continues, and the people spiral in, as if nothing were ever amiss.
Graven in the stone behind the alter, it reads
You enter now the narthex of the Arcis Magna, built in 2783. It celebrates the centenary of the establishment of the federated colonies on Gaia Nova, after our ancestors first landed. It represents the enduring strength of the human spirit, and commemorates the immeasurable loss of the 17.6 billion lives which perished on Earth during the great extinction of 2643.
Long Live Gaia Nova
Graven on the alter, it reads
Here lies Ephysius Kosmopoulos, president of the federated colonies.
2613-2751
His actions served to unite the shards of the old world, and to lead us into the stars.Rest now, below, forever above.
