World (4 page)
And we looked back.
Then.
Then the world darkened.
Once, the roads were guarded.
Guards ran like the roads: over the open
country under wide sky. Markets to market, house to house, country
to country, hand to hand: squinting in the sun, spotting travelers
from a distance and traders in the markets and the goods in the
hands, they watched along the wide and lighted rolling roads.
Watched roads.
Good roads carried them, and some roads they
closed.
Then.
Then when the roads were closed and kept, we
looked to the harbors. We looked to the harbors – safe places on
the oceans' bays – and we crowded to the harbors and looked out to
the bays opening on the wide and wild beyond. Travelers from the
roads, from the open country, looked out from the bays – looked
away from the roads running over open country, turned their backs
to the guards, took to the sea roads. (Looked away from the
guards – they were busy on the roads.)
Then.
Then the bays were guarded.
Guards squinted on the roads, squinted
farther than the roads and saw the bays. They looked up from their
roads and stretched their gaze out – gazed over the safe harbors,
stretched their eyes past the safe harbors, reached the wide and
wild things beyond.
Then.
Then sparkling bays surveilled, the harbors
– havens crowded now with refugees from the roads – were not havens
anymore. And some of them were blockaded – bays nailed up with
boards with chinks of light between. Sharp points – shivs sticking
up on woods' edges – sharp points and nail heads bent in haste and
splinters spiked the blockades and barred the bays.
The wide and wild oceans were on the other
side.
Then.
Then the bays emptied out. Closed doors and
blockades pushed the people to new refuge.
Then when the bays were emptied out, we
flocked to the bridges. Fortified the causeways above the mud,
above the open ground and the guards, above the blockades we
crowded in. The travelers and refugees and merchants crowded in. In
groups, in pairs, alone, we crowded in. More and more crowded in,
(and some themselves were guards.)
Then
Then the bridges were choked. Choked with
feet and watchful eyes, and the bridges bowed under them.
Then when the bridges were choked with feet
and watchful eyes – and bowing with the weight – we crept under
them. Crept under the bridges, travelers hid in the shadows,
gathered in the dark places under the beams, away from the roads,
the bays, the blockades.
Then.
Then, the shadows under the bridges were
watched. And we built more bridges and more shadows.
The world darkened.
Once, it was guarded.
Guards squinted in the sun, down the roads,
into the shadows. Blockades hid the sparkling bays from view.
Watchful eyes hid on the burdened bridges, watched the shadows
underneath. The watchers watched the world.
We watched them, too.
The watchful eyes were waiting – waiting
along the roads, in the markets, everywhere under the open skies.
Waiting for the travelers, for the traders, waiting for the goods,
for the things changing hands, waiting for the trades. The waiting
eyes watched the time, watched the sun passing over, over, over the
world and were impatient. Impatiently the watchers watched the
trades, watched the markets, watched the hands.
And we watched them, too.
Then.
Then the impatient eyes lost patience.
The impatient eyes lost patience waiting,
wasting time watching. They trained themselves on targets. Prying
eyes became pursuing eyes, punishing eyes. The watchers weaponized,
wielded their eyes against the world. And they broke it – broke the
oceans from the roads and the people from harbors and from the deep
and foreign organisms and the dangers on the waves and the beauties
on the other sides. The weaponized watchers watched the world.
And we watched them, too.
The world darkened.
Once it was beautiful. Wide roads
traversed the country, ran under the light, rolled under wheels,
carried goods from here to there and back. Markets to market, house
to house, country to country, hand to hand: they carried goods
along the wide and lighted rolling roads. Good roads.
Then.
Then the people missed the world.
Missed the open, running roads, missed the
harbors, missed the bridges, missed the wide and wild oceans, the
people missed
their
world. Not the blockaded abominations.
Not the watched dirt. Not the menace of the shade. (Not
that
world.)
They missed the world, undarkened.
Then.
Then, people made way into the world (back
into the world.)
People watched the guards, pounded fists
against the blockades, fought the closing of their open world.
People led themselves along the roads, over blockades, through the
darkening world.
The shadows grew cold as we looked back to
the roads, but the roads were overgrown and we looked back to the
bays but the bays were unkempt and we looked back to the bridges
but the bridges swayed and we looked back to the shadows, but the
shadows trembled.
So we built more.
Blythe, Aelius
: (1987–)
North American scribe, timid, nomadic.
Female of the species
H. sapiens.
Also wrote:
Stories About Things
CEASA