the boy gave the fire to the earth. it warmed the roots of the first river & it boiled into a desert, its spine twisted around dunes. the boy fed his blood into the blackened stump of the iron mountains & from its chewed down molars, bones of a million dead kingdoms fell out. Carrion feeders soon stood unable to fly, swollen with the grubs running amock, amid the many upturned graves. from this malingering abcess, the boy made his sons of dust
there was a girl with the boy when he did this thing. they were divine in their hate of each other. she was commanded by the creator to pull the boy's ribs from his abdomen & feed the waters of her tongue with the marrow. That ritual done, her children rose from the sky with wings unfurled. it was tragic, the way everything collapsed. the boy saw the girl's power & he hungered for it. when the bone men filled with grave humus & the celestial women filled with light met, there was the beginnings of darkness, a breaking of the universe, a twisting of time.
the boy wanted his children to thrive, so he pulled his fist from his angry scream & gave them war. the girl wanted her daughters to thrive, so she wove the sky into a wreathe & draped them with the leaves of decay. with each touch, the one wounded the other until they became strangers & then, their creator asked them to leave the garden untended. that is the story of the garden now grown into a forest with fire for breath & somewhere in the middle, still dug into the soil, is the iron hoe with which the boy wedded the land to the rains & harvest. It is so the story of the first man and woman goes in another lifetime. i swear it is true. i have seen it. i was there, in my infant stage, before i learnt to speak, to use words to cause distress.
this is a testament, a holy book, apocrypha if you may. from that forest the first river, still desolate, spread its dust into the sky and thus the first harmattan was made. it was in the scream of the dust tearing the paper flesh of the air that the first music was heard, the first magic. it was in those times, that the first animals gathered & named the girl queen. the boy did not take this lightly. filled with brittle anger and thorny jealousy, he gathered his sons and led them deep into cervasses of the iron mountains. In that dark place, his rage festered, an open sore on his forehead, a mark that never left.
after a thousand years, he came out with the horde. he had twisted his sons with fell powers and now they knew only hunger & thirst. he ravaged the world, seeking the girl who had taken his birthright but she was no more. she had given her body to the earth, to hold the fire in the deep. she slumbered, the ever tree, worshipped and protected by her kin. the boy sought the tree's destruction but he discovered a truth, there were some of his kin who had deserted in the long march to the iron mountains many years ago. they still bore the beauty of the earth in their visage and the creator had been kind to them. the daughters of the girl had taken them in and given them succour. they were strong and they were great in their own right. they saw their father and did not know him. he only looked like a beast rising from the deepness. there was war then.
the daughters sent fire down from the sun. the sons raised the earth against their father and the boy, long lost in the darkness saw nothing but hate and so he tore assunder the desert and plundered the sea that slumbered therein. the ever forest was innaudated with water and that was the last time the first place, the land of their origin, was seen. the creator was angry. they came down from their high abode & captured the boy in a grip tighter than steel. they took his powers from him and the vile visage of his children fell away from their bodies like ash. they banished the boy into the deepest part of sheol & chained his bones to the hall of remembrance. they dispersed his broken sons into the world, to seek redemption. the girl, they sanctified with their holy breath and the tree flourished.
it is said the twisted children of the boy still roam the world, angry and bitter, filled with pain and terror, searching for their father. they are known by the mark on their forehead. they are the purveyors of war and cruelty. the sons of the boy who did not march with their father and the daughters of the girl protect the world from them. there is a prophecy somewhere, a dark one that says after a thousand years of peace, the boy will rise from his solitude, break his chains and seek to complete what he had started.
but what is a thousand years in the eyes of the creator? what have they not seen? has the world not been broken before? the bones that fed the boy's children came from where? they sit in their holy throne. they wait. & i, a mouth fill with air & spit, i too await the coming flood. for i have seen it. i have seen the sea rise over all the land. i have seen the greatness die. after that, all that is left is water and sky both wreathed in darkness. Oh creator, i do not know what comes after!