IVY

July 17, 2017

“I must have the finest of red bricks and the most binding of gray mortar to build my giant cube,” said the Queen.

And so it came to pass that a monstrous cube of bricks, fair dwarfing the palace, towered above the city. Plague followed drought followed war, and devastation ruled. The city became abandoned rubble, then disappeared under desert sands. Buried, too, but perfectly preserved, was the giant brick cube. For it was enchanted and possessed a secret hidden inside. The Queen, now aged 800 or 8,000 or 80,000 years or more, sat in darkness, waiting. She was the secret hidden inside.

Then, after a millennial span of time, rains returned, and the desert bloomed. A wind attacked with seeming purpose the sand covering the brick cube. When the cube stood fully exposed in rigid splendor, the wind retired. The Queen inside awoke from a long dream.

“Ah, time to try again,” she muttered. Roots punched down through the soles of her golden slippers and grew in length, branched, slithered under and up, crawling to cover the walls on the outside of the brick cube. Leafy the green ivy grew in lovely embrace of the cube. And not one man, woman, or child ever saw it, for the Queen, Gaia, had cured the world of humanity.

 

 

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