We Were Once Gods
We fooled ourselves...
It’s been a little while since I’ve been able to sit and write. Unfortunate health concerns, both physical and mental, decided to take their tolls at inopportune times, and I found myself with a deep lack of energy to do anything of the creative bend.
Thankfully, of late, I have been slowly gathering my strength to once again bring you new things, and I am glad for those of you who have stuck around through the hiatus.
Today, I bring you a short one, but I am glad for how it came out. Inspiration finds us in strange beds sometimes…
More later. Thank you all for being the best you that you can be!
They cried out to us, once, as if we were gods.
Maybe we thought of ourselves as such. Maybe the way the lower ones would reach out to us as we passed by drove into our heads that we were much more than we actually were.
Perhaps that ego was what caused us to fail.
Well, that, and the endless droves of demons pouring forth from the ground as if they were maddening grasses awaiting the shear.
See, we weren't gods. Merely men. Swordslingers from an old age, blades held aloft in one hand as gunfire blazed with endless fury from the ends of our rifles in the other. Those did little to drown out the deafening roars coming from our throats as we'd meet the evil head-on.
Heartbreak, of course, was the only things resulting from that hubris. Broken bodies, broken lives, and rendered ties to anything resembling the humans we once were.
At least, that's how it was for those of us who didn't get dragged to the depths of the ten hells. Our companions? I can only pray to whatever real gods there might be left to listen that their fates ended swiftly on that day.
My spirit tells me that prayer has gone unanswered, and that the same fate will probably be waiting for me and those of my fellows who still breathe air.
If that be the case, I can only hope I am given a final chance to rend another few of those dark beings out of existence before I am carted off to my end.
Gods? That's how the people saw us. And now I wait for my end, hidden in a small cave with a few of those who had once stood so proudly at my side, praying to any real ones that might heed the gasping throttles from my gullet.
I still cannot believe we ever thought we had a chance...
Good to see you here, Ira. I have written very little in 2023 except for my newsletter. I hope that will change in 2024. As Neil Gaiman says, when things get tough, make good art.