Break the Covenant

A universe inflated like a balloon, still swelling, and our earth within, this impossible speck that by all math should not exist nor the lives in it, we.

Gifted a paradise where true currency is bound to every precious second ticking. It is a countdown.

And I and the countless souls in the city before me, break our minds and trade our souls for money, for a job we began training for as toddlers then a decade and a half of school minimum, so banks can lend us hundreds of thousands for houses with doubling interest, and we pray that all goes well and we can be free 30 years later, when we're old and the countdown nears the end.

And there's no choice. How can we stop?

Each tick tick tick worth more than any prior. Burnout is not mere exhaustion from hard work; it's a symptom of the poisoned soul. An acknowledgement that we spill about our greatest wealth like clumsy children holding cups once runneth over.

Marks for the confidence men, bled dry and thirsty and led across the desert, capable of turning back.

But no. Never.

We keep the path, crawling on glass and sand on bleeding knees and raw palms, our backs steadily whipped.

What a thought that all the universe that came before led to this. I think I'd rather make a go of it on my own. Better to fail and die a hungry death than work another day for someone else to get wealthy off my crippling labor.

Blow the mighty thousand trumpets! Sing you million choirs of angels! God let your voice thundershake the universe, so all, everywhere trembles. And I will belt out the message long lain hidden inside - I am of this earth and no man or woman born has any more right to be here than I. And I will quake the lands and shake the seas with the ferocity at which I ascend my throne, built not on money or power or the labor of others in my employ, but a throne made from my will and my time, and no one else's.