Heracles ~ Helen Flockhart
The streets of MantraRay have almost become comfortable in their gown of deserted-chic design.
Like strange dreams of displacement or dystopian nightmare visions, their emptiness has been a sigh; a reprieve from the constant demand of its erstwhile occupiers; a reprieve from that species that would not hear the warning to be quiet and listen.
But that reprieve is ending; people have started to appear on the streets - a trickle spearheaded by those few pale MantRanian survivors and swelled by the first of the refugees, bedraggled and sun-darkened.
From side streets they emerge as if by some pre-arranged signal, wander into the street and stop to look up and try and assimilate the view
Between the towering buildings looms the moon turned orange and enlarged to fill all but a narrow circular band of night sky.
If MantraRay had become accustomed to silence before, it is now that she understands the true meaning of the word.
Silence is the absence of all species that rely on the ability to listen in order to survive.
And what will survive this ending? DeSandro asks himself as his energy drains into the looming moon, what insect whose carapace is so thick as to preclude all but brain so cost effective as to allow only rudimentary, but effective, means to overcome such a harsh climate. Able to ride out the catastrophe and desolation caused for long enough for the millennia to cause a change; change whose by-product may provide sustenance of a nature, chemical or otherwise, sufficient to allow the primary tasks of physical survival and genetic procreation.
Like strange dreams of displacement or dystopian nightmare visions, their emptiness has been a sigh; a reprieve from the constant demand of its erstwhile occupiers; a reprieve from that species that would not hear the warning to be quiet and listen.
But that reprieve is ending; people have started to appear on the streets - a trickle spearheaded by those few pale MantRanian survivors and swelled by the first of the refugees, bedraggled and sun-darkened.
From side streets they emerge as if by some pre-arranged signal, wander into the street and stop to look up and try and assimilate the view
Between the towering buildings looms the moon turned orange and enlarged to fill all but a narrow circular band of night sky.
If MantraRay had become accustomed to silence before, it is now that she understands the true meaning of the word.
Silence is the absence of all species that rely on the ability to listen in order to survive.
And what will survive this ending? DeSandro asks himself as his energy drains into the looming moon, what insect whose carapace is so thick as to preclude all but brain so cost effective as to allow only rudimentary, but effective, means to overcome such a harsh climate. Able to ride out the catastrophe and desolation caused for long enough for the millennia to cause a change; change whose by-product may provide sustenance of a nature, chemical or otherwise, sufficient to allow the primary tasks of physical survival and genetic procreation.
| Back | Chapter Index | Forward |
No comments:
Post a Comment