Believing themselves to be masters of everything they surveyed, they took to sharpening stones and chipping rock against rock to create heat, and light, and the power to both build and destroy. They fashioned items designed to hurt, to dominate and to create; they harvested whatever they found around them and stretched open their arms to embrace the passing of generations and the gathering of knowledge.
From crude shelters, they conceived structures that kept snow, wind, rain and heat at bay. And when one shelter was filled, they built several, then hundreds, then thousands, all clustered together where resources were rich, and made richer. They clad themselves in warm, then extravagant, then rare fabrics; decorated themselves with polished chips of colour pulled from deep in the dark brown earth by those who would never wear them.
When no more room could be had on the ground, they built up towards the sky, not daring to call themselves gods, but daring to think it; daring to act it. And yet, as the world swung round, turning through the vast dark silence as it always had, their eyes grew heavy and they lay down, each and every one of them, to sleep. Frail creatures, unaware and unconscious, they sought soft, dark spaces every night, sinking down as the moon rose behind artificial lights.
No matter how long they lived, or how high they climbed, they were never more than small sparks of light in a dark room, easily snuffed and soon forgotten.
Image by DerekKeats on Flickr – shared under a Creative Commons licence.
You have the gift of saying a great deal with very few words. And the words create vivid images and suggest others hiding in the shadows.
I’m really pleased (and grateful!) that you think that. I’ve a tendency to be quite wordy, so I’m working at becoming more spare with what I include in my creative writing. It’s good to know I might be snipping out the right bits! x