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Last Days of Men
#WritcoStoryPrompt45
Write a story based on this famous excerpt from The Night Slowly Came by Kate Chopin:
“I am losing my interest in human beings; in the significance of their lives and their actions. Someone has said it is better to study one man than ten books. I want neither books nor men; they suffer primitive ideals and notions as they race toward an unknown conclusion.”
I watch their future unfold with omnipotent clarity while they wreak dread havoc upon their world. No remorse or sadness do they feel, as they crush all things to dust with their passing. They slash at the mother who gave them life and they strip bare all her raiments in an endless pursuit of power. They strip the soil of nourishment, leaving behind only parched ground where once fertile earth had sustained them. Disinterested, the eyes of man look on as their mother wastes away, her skin dry and cracked, falling from emaciated bones. They scurry about with preconceived notions of importance, and edicts that were writ by them, to assuage themselves and prove to themselves their godlike importance. Self serving, they take no notice as their mother falters and diminishes while man conquers and consumes. To slash and burn, to rake uncaring claws across her bosom, seeking the very marrow in her bones and the flesh from her body.
As tired infection spreads, and weakens their mother, they watch with indifference as that plague slowly consumes her. They watch with disinterest as her tears turn sour with the black taint that spreads from their soulless tabernacles. Myth and worship they create to further their parasitic ideals. They poison the very wellsprings of life from whence they came, uncaring and with a malignant zeal borne not of these realms. Wielding archaic machines, the humans scour clean the lungs of their splendid mother, and turn away as she gasps in vain of the poisonous clouds that remain. They look on as she lies like a beggar clothed in rags of filth and detritus. Still, she reaches out to her offspring. With broken hands and wasted bones, she yearns to protect them and nourish them. To shield them from their dread enemy. Themselves. To sacrifice herself even, she languishes upon the barren altars of old where once men worshipped her as a god.
Now the mother prays for her children and beckons to the ancient and unknown gods of her dim pantheon for their salvation and redemption. She cares not for herself, but only for the offspring that have destroyed her and consumed her with such cold indifference. For her time is at an end, her beauty is failing, her nourishing bosom is dried up and the breath she breathes has become pestilence. Hollowed out and barren, her children have flayed her raw, leaving nothing but a husk. Her children, those ravaging humans, turned to the sky whilst she perished, with nary a thought or a prayer. They did not notice the last color draining from her dry dusty bones, nor did they weep. Only they thought of themselves and what lay beyond her ruined body. Where else could they reap and harvest and consume? They looked to those old gods for salvation and begged and pleaded until eventually they set out to find them.
To the old gods they looked for salvation, for respite, but only one of their children had ever cast its gaze upon men. For those dim deities were as indifferent as mankind always they looked out into the empty voids. Watching in endless, cold silence. Only their mother had reached out from ageless dark eons and gave them life where there was none and gave them sanctuary in those endless black gulfs. She nurtured them and protected them from the terrifying expanse. She coaxed them from their sanctums beneath primordial seas, to grow and sculpt her as they saw fit. She gave them the tools they needed to harness all things and forge their existence however they desired.
Her dim brethren drifted across the great voids, and never again did they look back toward their dying sister and her children. They left her alone in the endless black sea and eventually drifted beyond even her remote memory. In some distant future, those men had stripped their mother bare and left her alone, gone in search of her brethren beyond those limitless black gulfs. She watched them depart and sighed her final breath. At long last, her children had consumed her to the very last. They left one day as the Earth died, gone in search of their mother’s kin, out there across the endless dark ocean.
© ChrisCrow
Write a story based on this famous excerpt from The Night Slowly Came by Kate Chopin:
“I am losing my interest in human beings; in the significance of their lives and their actions. Someone has said it is better to study one man than ten books. I want neither books nor men; they suffer primitive ideals and notions as they race toward an unknown conclusion.”
I watch their future unfold with omnipotent clarity while they wreak dread havoc upon their world. No remorse or sadness do they feel, as they crush all things to dust with their passing. They slash at the mother who gave them life and they strip bare all her raiments in an endless pursuit of power. They strip the soil of nourishment, leaving behind only parched ground where once fertile earth had sustained them. Disinterested, the eyes of man look on as their mother wastes away, her skin dry and cracked, falling from emaciated bones. They scurry about with preconceived notions of importance, and edicts that were writ by them, to assuage themselves and prove to themselves their godlike importance. Self serving, they take no notice as their mother falters and diminishes while man conquers and consumes. To slash and burn, to rake uncaring claws across her bosom, seeking the very marrow in her bones and the flesh from her body.
As tired infection spreads, and weakens their mother, they watch with indifference as that plague slowly consumes her. They watch with disinterest as her tears turn sour with the black taint that spreads from their soulless tabernacles. Myth and worship they create to further their parasitic ideals. They poison the very wellsprings of life from whence they came, uncaring and with a malignant zeal borne not of these realms. Wielding archaic machines, the humans scour clean the lungs of their splendid mother, and turn away as she gasps in vain of the poisonous clouds that remain. They look on as she lies like a beggar clothed in rags of filth and detritus. Still, she reaches out to her offspring. With broken hands and wasted bones, she yearns to protect them and nourish them. To shield them from their dread enemy. Themselves. To sacrifice herself even, she languishes upon the barren altars of old where once men worshipped her as a god.
Now the mother prays for her children and beckons to the ancient and unknown gods of her dim pantheon for their salvation and redemption. She cares not for herself, but only for the offspring that have destroyed her and consumed her with such cold indifference. For her time is at an end, her beauty is failing, her nourishing bosom is dried up and the breath she breathes has become pestilence. Hollowed out and barren, her children have flayed her raw, leaving nothing but a husk. Her children, those ravaging humans, turned to the sky whilst she perished, with nary a thought or a prayer. They did not notice the last color draining from her dry dusty bones, nor did they weep. Only they thought of themselves and what lay beyond her ruined body. Where else could they reap and harvest and consume? They looked to those old gods for salvation and begged and pleaded until eventually they set out to find them.
To the old gods they looked for salvation, for respite, but only one of their children had ever cast its gaze upon men. For those dim deities were as indifferent as mankind always they looked out into the empty voids. Watching in endless, cold silence. Only their mother had reached out from ageless dark eons and gave them life where there was none and gave them sanctuary in those endless black gulfs. She nurtured them and protected them from the terrifying expanse. She coaxed them from their sanctums beneath primordial seas, to grow and sculpt her as they saw fit. She gave them the tools they needed to harness all things and forge their existence however they desired.
Her dim brethren drifted across the great voids, and never again did they look back toward their dying sister and her children. They left her alone in the endless black sea and eventually drifted beyond even her remote memory. In some distant future, those men had stripped their mother bare and left her alone, gone in search of her brethren beyond those limitless black gulfs. She watched them depart and sighed her final breath. At long last, her children had consumed her to the very last. They left one day as the Earth died, gone in search of their mother’s kin, out there across the endless dark ocean.
© ChrisCrow
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