Rebirth

Photograph is "My Living Room" by alexiuss.

            People lived here, before the plague came.

            A fire burned beneath those bricks. The smell of fresh wood smoke mingled with the scents of simmering stews and baking breads. Where splintering debris lays now, children used to trip and fall gently on a soft carpet. A sturdy roof kept a family warm and dry.

            They said the plague was the great death, the death of all. But look what it left behind.

           

            Vines crawl up that chimney now. The green fragrances of moss and mushrooms and newly unfurled leaves waft through the house. Fresh saplings dig their roots in the dirt. Open beams welcome in the energy of sunlight and the nourishment of rain.

            There was no death here. Only change.

Judge by Looks

Photograph is "Agaricus Rose Campestris" by alexiuss.

            The finest sorcerers spent years breeding this.

            Old men and women bent creaky backs over workbenches covered in tiny seeds. Middle aged witches and warlocks carefully placed hundreds of blooms into the cages of terrified mice. Freshly cloaked journeymen donned garden gloves and breathing-masks to collect the blooms. Eager apprentices dutifully watered the seedlings, pruned the potted bushes, and stoked the fires that kept the greenhouse warm in the cold seasons.  

            Thorns became smaller and duller-edged. Leaves developed a natural green. Petals became redder in hue, softer in texture.

            The plants became more convincing.

            Slowly, year after painstaking year, worthless plant after worthless plant, this emerged.

            A thing that looks exactly like rose, a beauty to die for.

The wall is falling down.

Photograph is "Kaleidoscope Reverie" by alexiuss. 

The bricks are chipping off.

The mortar is a flaky crust

grinding into greyish dust

puffing like a sickly cough.

Stairs sag beneath the weight

of bricks and dirt and bottle caps.

Sometimes they creak. They will collapse,

split by gravity and fate.

It's just a matter of time,

‘til the wood has rotted away,

‘til the wall, long past its day,

is just a memory of grime.

The wall is falling down, falling down.

Soon it will be completely through:

and the last brick will hit the ground

freed at last to be something new.