Marbleization

There is an exquisite palatial colonnade rising from a granite stylobate--thus, a foundation and its marbled columns. A lofty horizontal mezzanine of contiguous lintel perches well above even the greatest men's heights--an entablature of architrave, frieze, and ouroboric cornice--that comes full circle for the inquisitive, orbiting eyes that follow it.

This ancient structure has withstood the acidic tincture of time. It sits empty, its very structure remaining as its only raison d'être, now a self-referential monument to itself. But it haunts careful observers as a monument to hidden things.

There is a serene beauty, yet this is a deceit that belies terrible truths. The laminar ambiance is riddled with an insidious turbulence: there is something foul unfolding that is unholy, riding the inhuman convections of an ill wind.

The veins in the columns' marble come together in the mind's eye, depicting what went on here yestergo. As an inner vision dilates, accommodating to a confluence of illusory cracks, lines, and marbleization, this erstwhile monument of grandness becomes an entablature of horror.

The first column's imperfections present a tableau of anguish on the irregular faces that begin to stand out.

The second column comes into focus with a history of the ruthless quashing of insurrections.

The third column is rife with the machinations of dismemberment as a punitive education for those who learned quickly.

And so it goes, like the Stations of the Cross, each tall monolithic column continuing the parade of tragedy, pathos, and misery--all man-made--like was this place of hidden history. It stands as a monument to Man's inhumanity.

The final column, standing before the first from which this tour of psyche-blistering began, signifies how an end is merely a beginning of repeated anthropomorphic cruelties. There is as much distinction between this last and the first as there is between any two randomized columns and their nightmares.

This final column depicts the erection of this edifice and those who struggled, suffered, and died building it--for whom?

It was built for me!

And it was built for those who know why it must be torn down. The reasons are as plain as the lifelines on the palms of one's dirty, damned-spotted hands. And fear not, "those ignorant of history doomed to repeat it," for it does not matter.