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Title: To the Desertmaker
Author: ziq
Date: 2019-24-04
Language: en
Topics: anti-civ, nihilism, green, ecocide, post-left, fiction, civilization, industry, industrialism, environment, bosses
Source: Retrieved on 2019-24-04 from https://raddle.me/wiki/to_the_desertmaker

ziq

To the Desertmaker

I see you, creature. I see what you do.

You drill holes into Terra’s skull, drench their flesh with poison, pull

their hair out by the handful, hack off their limbs, drain the blood

from their veins and burn it. This you call growth, development,

progress.

Day and night you grind Terra's bones into powder to erect your

grotesque eidola to death all across their bloodied torso. This you call

your mighty civilization. A tangled mess of concrete, steel and plastic

pointed towards me so I am forced to look upon it.

You direct your servants to build your towers higher and higher. After

all, you are very special! The civilized, sophisticated, highly

respected creature! Behold the important executive in the tailor-made

suit, shoes crafted from the finest alligator hide! What an impressive

specimen! What a handsome creature you are!

You’re lifted to the top of your tallest tower so you can perch yourself

in your opulent shrine to the wealth you have plucked from Terra’s body.

You stand high and gaze down at the wretched souls below, making sure

every one of them knows you rule over them, that Terra is your personal

dominion. Your private property to use and abuse as you please.

I see you, creature. I see what you do.

You have demolished their sublime mountains to construct your shopping

malls and marinas. You have drained their great lakes to plant your

carefully manicured golf courses. Felled their majestic forests to graze

your billion cows. Desecrated their vast oceans with your rotten, putrid

waste.

You’re driven to control Terra, to change the course of their rivers, to

reshape their shorelines and modify their lifeforms to suit your

rapacious appetite. You can’t fathom of a world where you don’t own the

earth below your feet; posses everything Terra created as your own.

You are imperious to assume Terra will be so affected by a fleetingly

short-lived and short-sighted creature as yourself. If it takes a

million of your lifetimes, Terra will wash away the volumes of excrement

you have soiled their surface with.

You spent your wretched life desperately cutting your name into Terra's

flesh, but Terra's wounds will callus over, creature. Long after the

arrogant grin you wear on your lips has turned to dust with the rest of

your foul corpse, Terra will regenerate. All the beautiful, disparate

beasts you have eradicated during your brief gluttonous tantrum will be

reborn. The trees will rise again in magnificent groves as far as the

eye can see. Everything you took will be reclaimed.

For a while, Terra will be rendered as desolate as I. A vast desert of

your creation. But in time, the stench of death you brought will be

lifted and the oceans will come back to life. Then the land and then the

skies.

I move synchronous to Terra, following their every movement. We are in

rhythm together, Terra and I. We have danced this dance for longer than

you can conceive.

I see you, creature. I see what you do. I see what you are. I see every

desperate grasp for power. Every sordid manipulation and abuse to cement

your position on the top floor of the tallest tower. The wasted lives of

those you have coerced into your service.

You think yourself so evolved, creature. You look down at all you have

plundered, and you think yourself worthy of Terra’s grace. You have laid

waste to Terra’s resplendence and you and your kind will suffer terribly

for it. Everything you know will die a senseless death. Every child you

bear from your loins will die horribly, their potential wasted.

To think of all the creative, wonderful things your servants could have

manifested without the chains you encumbered them with. So much wonder

will never come to pass because of your covetous rampage.

I have forever been locked to Terra. Though we have never touched, I

feel as if I am an extension of them. Though I am devoid of life myself,

I assist in birthing all life on Terra. I drive their tides; transport

heat from their equator to their poles, arousing the cycle of life.

As everything around you collapses into ruin, you will no doubt retreat

from your fetid towers in the sky and escape deep into Terra's ground.

There, you will cower and hide from the rapidly unfolding chaos you

wrought on the world above. You will surely use your immense wealth to

cling to life for as long as you can, but eventually your time will run

out.

As you lay in your reinforced underground bunker clasping your last tank

of air, awaiting your end, and everyone that toiled in drudgery to serve

you is dead and forgotten, think of everything you have accomplished

during your brief existence. Think of the endless suffering you wrought

on Terra’s lands to claim such fleeting, pointless rewards for yourself.

Think of the deep emptiness inside you and how none of your misbegotten

wealth could ever fill it. And now think of me.

It is time. Arise from your living tomb, creature. Climb the steps to

the surface. Stumble out into the dark and face me!

Look upon the vast desert that stands in testament to the miserable

carnage you forged. Watch as Terra burns. Gaze upon the fires and take

pleasure in the knowledge that you actualized all your perverse power

machinations. You dominated every being under you. Used their labor to

grow your wealth to unparalleled levels. Stole their lives to grant

yourself ever more fame, power and luxury. You defeated all your

competitors, accumulated all the capital you possibly could, and now you

get to stand and witnesses the end of everything you knew.

Look and see, creature. Look how your desert is eclipsed by my shining

glow in the night sky. Look up at me, creature. Look up as I look down

on you. Choke on Terra’s stale, toxic air. Hear me laugh heartily as you

breathe your last desperate breath and are finally engulfed by the fires

you lit.

This is a great victory for you. Your life ends here in the great desert

you made and no one is left to curse your name for all the hurt you did.

Absurd creature, imagining you could stand above the ancient, primal

life that sprouted you. Thinking your time spent bludgeoning all other

lifeforms into submission somehow significant. Terra has seen you and

all you are and has washed their hands of you.

Long after your corpse has disintegrated into a pile of sand, I will

send tidal waves to wash away whatever ruins remain of your brief,

rancid civilization. Then volcanoes will rise from Terra's belly, lava

will spew into the oceans and form new lands. Life will thrive again.

Terra will be reborn.

And let us hope none of the new creatures Terra bears during their

rebirth will be as noxious and destructive as you, senseless

desertmaker.