The Future
From the Journal of Isaiah
No one knows for sure what happened all those years ago. Some say it was a virus, others say a biological weapon.
I say it was fate.
We climbed too high too fast. We thought ourselves above the gods and were laid low by their power, cast back into the age of our first memories. Mankind had to climb down from the trees once again and brave life on the ground for the second time.
While we cowered in fear, hiding from the silent killer and from ourselves, the natural world rebounded. The Reconquista. Animals and plants slithered and crawled, galloped and spread forth from their miniscule isolated pockets of nature to reclaim what was theirs. The great works of man, towering cities and iron bridges became just another part of the landscape.
Obstacles for the natural world to climb and inhabit.
Now, through the surety of time, we dare to venture forth from our caves and witness all we have lost. Perhaps we are bearing witness to all that we have gained?
The air is crystal and the waters sing with purity. No light shines but for the fires of the sun and twinkling of the stars. Nature’s bounty is plentiful with game and food crops proliferating in the absence of their worst predator. Deer frolic on emerald streets where there were once cars and masses of humanity. The world is painted in shades of green and brown with splashes of flowering brilliance.
The only mar on the landscape are the occasional flashes of grey and black that once was concrete and asphalt. Soon, that too will be covered in verdure and lost to the ravages of time. I am not sure if it will be missed, such is the beauty that replaced it.
What else awaits us out there, I do not know.
Is it better than the world we left behind?
For this excerpt, I pictured mankind coming out of survival shelters after some form of pandemic. The world they knew was reclaimed by nature, and the author struggles with his thoughts on if the new world is better than the old.