literature

Daffodils

Deviation Actions

Published: Feb 20, 2011

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Literature Text

_{The end of the world is gray.

It is all ash, and what color remains is anemic and washed-out in a defeated,
this-is-what-we-were sort of way. Because these enormous, flashy
billboards, these towering pillars of glass—this was everything we ever were.

The end of the world is quiet.

Nobody shouts. Nobody speaks. Nobody laughs. And there are no TVs that work or
buses that run or music that plays. Because there is nobody left to shout or speak
or laugh or drive or sit in front of his or her TV. And if there was ever music,
it has died in my throat or maybe somewhere in my heart.

The end of the world is empty.

Buildings lean against each other, sighing, crumbling away. Rafters shift and
masonry cracks, belching small puffs of white dust. Heavy iron struts that are
shaped like crosses rust in the rain, but nobody worships them.

The end of the world is cold.

It rains sometimes, but even the rain is respectfully quiet of its empty planet.
It is careful to soften its pitter-patter blows against the heavy blanket of ash,
which sounds like muted applause. And the earth says, thank you, thank you. Thank
you for destroying me. Thank you. I was… tired. So tired.

The rain turns the ash to sludge and it swirls around my sneakers, which used to be white.
It stains the palms of my hands as I slip and grasp for purchase on the
rail of a rickety stair. Some debris drops away and into a broad puddle below
with a splash of spreading ripples that makes me flinch. The silence at the end of
the world is cathedral silence. Reverent silence. It feels like a sin to break it.

But soon the ripples are gone and the echoes die away, and the silence rushes in
and my ears ring with the stillness.

At the top of the stairs, there is a small loft, which might have been a modest
apartment until most of the slats that made up the hardwood floor rotted away.
Then the roof crumbled inwards, revealing the apartment's aching iron ribs, curled
lovingly around a pile of rubble with its perfunctory coating of cinders.

If you were to brush away the cool, feathery ash, you would find the remains of a
red clay pot, which is where a few small seeds used to live in a bed of rich, dark
soil. Once upon a time, somebody watered those seeds, placed the little clay pot
in a south-facing window, and prayed for sun.

The soil is gone and the pot is shattered and broken. The tenant who prayed for
sunshine is gone, too. Shattered and broken like the little clay pot.

But at the end of the world,

There are daffodils.}

_{I think, even at the end of the world, there will still be daffodils.

I wrote this for ~gurukiki who challenged me to, "... Write about something that is not real, or even based on something real... Written in the same way that I try to portray the world in my photographs. Like there is always something beautiful out there to see, something that is perfect, no matter how bad everything else might be,"

I did say that I had been writing about daffodils.}