The Shadow at the End of Time
*The following is a second myth to go with my novel, Harvest. It doesn't quite fit my novel yet, but it was fun getting to this point.
When humanity had yet to exist, the Great Ape, Fox, and Heron gifted the world with purpose and harmony. Mankind came to envy these gifts, but could not grasp their beauty - what a foolish creature, to not know the way home. And so shall history write itself:
There lived a race called humankind, who sought peace and possessed none. With little effort, it called forth a shadow from deep nightmares. It spoke like peace, but in the guise of shapeless fear. Humans thought to control it, but the shadow feasted on their aimless anger.
The end crept in slowly, and just as they were made, humans took themselves apart. In all their villages, the shadow flowed. Young were not spared, nor old. Slow as old honey, then quick as a comet, the shadow grew. Mankind was blinded to Death, who walked beside them.
They awoke one day to the terror of absence. Humans were embers, half-remembered on a starless night, fading to nothing at all. And they had forgotten where they came from. The Great Ape's strength was abandoned; the Fox's cunning had blunted; the Heron's wings were a whisper, drowned by the frantic beating of weak hearts. When they at last saw the shadow, all were powerless against it, and the lightning end burned them like dry tinder.
So will we fall from the brittle pages of history, and no one will be left to mourn us.
When humanity had yet to exist, the Great Ape, Fox, and Heron gifted the world with purpose and harmony. Mankind came to envy these gifts, but could not grasp their beauty - what a foolish creature, to not know the way home. And so shall history write itself:
There lived a race called humankind, who sought peace and possessed none. With little effort, it called forth a shadow from deep nightmares. It spoke like peace, but in the guise of shapeless fear. Humans thought to control it, but the shadow feasted on their aimless anger.
The end crept in slowly, and just as they were made, humans took themselves apart. In all their villages, the shadow flowed. Young were not spared, nor old. Slow as old honey, then quick as a comet, the shadow grew. Mankind was blinded to Death, who walked beside them.
They awoke one day to the terror of absence. Humans were embers, half-remembered on a starless night, fading to nothing at all. And they had forgotten where they came from. The Great Ape's strength was abandoned; the Fox's cunning had blunted; the Heron's wings were a whisper, drowned by the frantic beating of weak hearts. When they at last saw the shadow, all were powerless against it, and the lightning end burned them like dry tinder.
So will we fall from the brittle pages of history, and no one will be left to mourn us.
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