Rough Cuts (Unpolished, unpublished poem ...

Rough Cuts (Unpolished, unpublished poems #922A)

Sep 25, 2022

…and now, for something completely different. This week’s Rough Cut is the result of an idea I just wasn’t happy with as a poem. Though I have never been happy with previous attempts at prose, I decided to give it a shot with this idea. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I look forward to your feedback.

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Photo: https://unsplash.com/@catalinpop

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Twenty Winters

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The dark form approached slowly, barely distinguishable in the perpetual gloom. As was our custom, he announced himself.

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“Michael Scot.”

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The thin shadow slowly moved closer through the murky air. Further than twenty inches away, we were all shadows, and so identified ourselves at a safe distance. The few of us who remained went by single names, except Michael Scot, the ancient. He was the only one who remembered well all we had lost. He was also the only one who still lived in Perdita. The city’s stench clung to him even after the many days it had taken him to get to me.

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“It has been twenty winters.” He reported as he stood tall before me. There was no emotion in his voice, nor in mine as I responded.

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“Twenty winters.” With so few of us left, each inhabiting our own territory, there was so little opportunity or need for conversation, that the sound of my own voice surprised me, the rough, dark noise which left my throat both confusing and amusing me.

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I gestured to a shadow I knew to be a comfortable rock. Michael Scot moved to it slowly and sighed as he sat. I went into the cave, and when I returned, offered him something to eat. He took it and ate quickly without asking what it was. Certain it was fresher and cleaner than anything he found in the city, I decided to give him all I had when he was ready to leave. It would be my way of thanking him for the information and company. The same courtesy would be extended to me when I relayed the message.

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Twenty winters, I thought as we ate in silence. Twenty winters since the event. I had been just a child. I remembered little of what happened immediately after, and nothing of life before.

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After a while, he spoke again, his voice less rough than mine, somehow taking the edge off the bleak chill.

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“We had it all.” He said. “The whole world was alive. We had nature, sunlight, and seasons. We had real food, all we wanted all the time. So much, we wasted it. Water was clean and always available. It rained back then too, and when it wasn’t cloudy, we could see the sky. We had the sun in the day and the moon and stars at night. And we had a future. Or so we thought. How ignorant and happy we were. Numb and dumb, we took for granted that blessed life and the liberty to pursue the shadows of happiness reflected in the many shiny things we coveted.” He sighed again and turned away, staring off into the eternal gloaming.

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“There were creatures then.” He continued. “So many kinds of animals. A small percentage of what our ancestors had known, of course, but still, so many we took them for granted. We killed them for sport and used them for pleasure. We even genetically manipulated certain species so we could keep them in our homes as living toys. We created machines and gave to them as many of our responsibilities and powers as they could handle, intent on domesticating technology as we had done to so many of nature’s creations.”

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He lowered his head. I remained silent.

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His voice was not as smooth when he continued. “With little to do, and having turned our backs on nature, religion, and even our own humanity, we happily raped the planet, dug our graves, and buried ourselves under mountains of cheap and meaningless things, all the while asking if we were good enough. Never, however, did we stop to ask if we may have all perhaps been better off without all the things we just couldn’t live without. By then, we couldn’t even think to ask such a question.”

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“Why not?” I heard myself wonder aloud.

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It was too late.” He answered. “It was too late. It had been done so methodically, first by the few humans who controlled the majority, then by the technology they unleashed, that we did not see it coming. We should have, but we didn’t. We chose not to, really, each of us opting day after day for the comforts of complacency. Soon, the desecrated world was no longer outside us, but was coursing through our veins, polluting our hearts, mutating our cells, perverting our brains. Preserved by poison, we swallowed sweet lies whole, no matter how big, and grinned like fools while we did as we were sold. We were perfect lambs.”

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Michael Scot stared silently into the dead darkness. “When the event happened,” He said, almost in a whisper, “We we’re sitting ducks. We didn’t stand a chance.”

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I did not ask what a lamb was. Or a duck.

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Twenty winters, I thought.

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I didn’t ask what a winter was either.

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Copyright 2022 by M. E. Forbes.

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