Just finished another class (sorry, this is where all of my writing time is spent, unfortunately). For this project we had to focus on the zoom. We had to either zoom in or zoom out. I chose to zoom out and (hopefully) make a point. I had a lot of fun with it. It is repetitive, but I think that works as a cadence, but it is detracting as an overall story (better if formatted as a poem IMO). Let me know your thoughts (really, give me your thoughts).
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A yellow ring circles the hole in the sink’s drain. The porcelain cracked and browned from times cruel hand. Sinewy brown legs appear through the drain looking for purchase as a brown spider crawls into the barren sink. In front of it, in the middle of the kitchen, is an old wooden table, long forgotten, and covered in a thick layer of gray dust. Spider webs stretch from the table to the counters, to the ceiling, to the fixtures, unbroken, allowed to dominate this empty establishment.
Whomever once called this domicile home, left in an absolute hurry. The chairs usually placed around this elegant table, now tossed aside, lying on the floor, some broken, others majestically accepting their final resting place. Cabinet doors remain open, as do several drawers as if someone was looking for something in a panic. A rancid odor permeates the thick, dust-filled air. Spoiled food from the still open refrigerator the likely culprit.
Behind the kitchen is a dining room, which is connected to a family room. Cobwebs create a barrier through each new doorway. Each room, another path through this decent-sized home. An office, bedrooms, bathrooms, even a laundry room. Between each room is a hallway, filled with pictures of the happy family who once resided in this now aging house. Likely dead and now a part of the reclaimed ground after the great war poisoned the very dirt this home sits upon.
The house’s cracked siding, with chipping blue paint, rots from the insects who have made it their home. Vibrant ivy climbs up each side of the house as if swallowing the building whole and digesting what remains for generations. Thick grass, untouched for years, surrounds the home. Tall trees stand dead, once green and vibrant, now something out of a Halloween horror movie with their long bony claws reaching up to heaven. To either side, more houses stretching for as far as the eye can see. This home is just one of many, once filling this concrete jungle. It is a neighborhood. And two streets over is another neighborhood, and another, making what was once called a suburb. Each suburb is next to another suburb, and several more, all of which once formed a city. At the heart of the city, giant buildings block out the sun and cast shadows in their wake. The hustle and bustle of people moving about long replaced with silence.
Hundreds of years ago, this land was a forest. Tall majestic trees filled the horizon. But then humans arrived. They chopped down the trees in the name of progress to build the things they needed, unworried about the future, knowing they would grow back. For a while, the trees did do precisely that, but as urban sprawl spread around the world to support the staggering population growth, more and more land dedicated to the trees was replaced by cities, suburbs, neighborhoods, and homes. When empty land grew scarce, human turned on human, brother on brother, neighborhood on neighborhood, and city on city all in pursuit of the resources needed to survive, which once grew in abundance, but because of human greed, all but disappeared.
When the dust of war settled, only a few remained, but with no one to produce the things the remaining needed to survive, they too disappeared. Even the mightiest of survivors will eventually pass on, some from hunger, others from feeling alone. The world is a big and lonely place, especially after so many have returned to the dirt. Now, Mother Nature is left to reclaim the world that once belonged to her.
Isn’t it ironic, that in the name progress and survival, humans devastated the very things they needed for survival? The very buildings they built to survive, remain long after the light of human life is extinguished. The concrete roads, streets, and highways, now cracked and falling apart. Grass, plants, and trees peak their heads out between the cracks to see if it is safe to sprout and survive. They crawl over the now empty surface and overtake the abandoned cars and trucks. Down each road, the plants find house after house to call home. Eventually, each car, home, building, and structure is covered in new, vibrant, green life. Finally, all signs the humans were even here are erased, which is Mother Nature’s intention. Humans were, after all, a failed experiment, and it is up to her to set things right. In just a couple of decades, the resilient Earth will long forget about the invasion of humans and will thrive in the new environment the Mother has given it.
J.G. Gatewood Blog 