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nothing beautiful can last
By Katie Ampersand
And then at sunrise, there was a single blade of grass.
This sunrise wasn't special, nor was the blade of grass. This sunrise was like many others, as the world that it was viewed from spinned around its own axis once again, uncaring for anything that could happen in it. The blade of grass sat alone for a few moments, but was eventually joined by others.
It wasn't only blades of grass, though. It was joined by other creatures, like insects, fungi, wolves, trees, and eventually, a particular species began to stand on two of its limbs and look up at its skies. Neither the grass, nor the fungi, nor these creatures themselves knew that they would be calling it theirs.
By noon, not much had happened. These cratures had set up a place to live, but that was about it. They did silly things like this all the time. Setting up structures, giving them names, dancing around them like spirals of ants, careless of their ongoing decay. Some of the other creatures did not complain, though, the food they had was good, and they eventually adapted to this new, softer kind of life.
It was by afternoon that things got weird. They started building up higher and changing the land to their own whims. They decided to have control over the world around them, over other creatures, even over others of their own kind. By night, there weren't many things that could stop these creatures, except probably the one thing that did.
Their sickness for power led them to control who lives and who dies. Single individuals could wave their hands and so erase the lives of thousands, if not millions of others. It was madness, and ultimately, at midnight, it axed them out of existance. The first few hours of the morning were desolate, silent, and the few traces of a world were slowly fading away in the soft wind.
And then at sunrise, there was a single blade of grass.
This story is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA