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The sky blazed red this morning, as if the city itself was burning, burning on the horizon, which actually is not so far from the truth. My skin and joints still await its illusory promises of sun and warmth, the flames reflected in the dawning air.
This City is burning down.
Years were spent constructing this place. Some blueprints were personally drawn, others were selected without option, yet all were built without consideration of future weather, atmospheric shifts no one had foreseen, except perhaps the quiet ones. But who listened to them, if they were even acknowledged?
And so a great kingdom was born. A land of all desired, a land of one king— a land that was the universe walled in.
But the nature of walls is they keep everything out. The nature of walls is they keep everything in.
What is it that happens when the inside can no longer be contained within? What will occur when the outside has no more room without?
It must burn.
What was intended to stand firm unto the end of the age must crumble to ash, and surrender unto the end of the age. Panicked rescue efforts must cease and desist, and merely stand guard as the Element consumes the shape of the world. The bones of the structure must be exposed to their core, and the light of a new sky allowed to break through.
And the courage to gaze upon the other side must be summoned, conjured, invoked like a god, to face a new planet there all along. Bravely planted, facing squarely the vivid dawn, naked and unknown, as it surrounds like a flood, a tsunami swallowing every sense, the kingdom must be allowed to… die.
Among the ruins, precious jewels begin to show; ancient scripts unveil their prize, reflecting first light seen in lifetimes uncounted. Incense embedded wafts to the clouds, and something engrained in the cells awakes, inhaling, releasing, relaxing within. A gift of immeasurable worth has been given: this Burning has peeled back layers of time— time not yet written, time not yet born.
A pregnancy growing, contractions arrive.
The hourglass filtering has run out of sand, and the Time of Our Choosing has alighted at hand.
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You really are a beautiful writer … And yes … all you've said is true.
Awww! Thank you, dearest! *mwah!*