Mice: The Story of a People - Volume One

A Story That Must be Told

The history of my people must be told one last time. There will soon to be nothing left but the fading of what I tell here. An echo to a posterity that will forevermore be deaf, dumb, and blind. A void will swallow all into an eternity of `it is no longer¿ that will become `it never was¿. Without trace. Without memory. As if nothing ever was of it.

I tell this story because I must. As I am the only one who remains, it will be the last telling. Such a melancholy role. Gained only by being the last. I sit alone in this vast place. With my passing, remembering will end. The stories will cease to be told. All that once was will fade into nothingness. The memories of those who lived in this world will be shared no more. Known no more. All will dissolve with the dimming of my light. My end is near.

This is the history of the generations of the people as it has been passed down to me. My forlorn hope is that some unknown listener will hear the faint echo of what I tell. That some people unknown to me will take notice of the lessons we have so painfully learned. That our story will aid some to avoid our tragic fate. But I fear that, as I tell this tale, nothing will be heard; for no one is there to hear. Alone at the last. The last alone. Alone.

If the old stories are to be believed, we were once a happy people. Blessed by a Creator who provided for our every need. Delivered into a place that was abundant beyond any expectation. We came into this world as immigrants, took advantage of its generosity and eventually became its pollution. Even as our beginning was blessed, our end is clearly a curse of our own fashioning.

I have no way of understanding why our fate has been so tragic. Clearly it was the doing of the people - for the Creator was, and remained until near the very end, ever benevolent. Maybe it was cruel fate. The aversion to that benevolence that manifested itself at the pinnacle of our flowering and drove our so-rapid decline.

What once was a paradise has now become a wasteland that even the Creator has abandoned. Where abundance flourished, came desolation and disease. Left alone ¿ abandoned by the Creator at the very end ¿ the final decent began and ran its course with such speed that those overtaken by it had no way of knowing what was happening to them or why. They simply expired bewildered and afraid.

My people were given this world. They flourished in it. And now, all save me are gone. Now there is only regret. I am the last. And, when I pass, even that regret will cease to be. Truth be said, I ache for that silence with my entire being.

There will be silence forever ¿ no movement ¿ no new generations but also no disease, war, or treachery. The last messiah is gone. The last of the lies lay dormant below. The last false reality has passed into irrelevance. Perhaps these are good things. We have profaned what was given to us and paid the ultimate price.

I speak to posterity because there is no one left to hear. And then silence. Eternity begins. Muttering into the void, I will tell the story one more time as it was passed down to me.

Thaddeus

Dettagli