Break

Break

Vignette

Sometimes, the strain is too much. The weight is no longer bearable. There might be warning. A hairline crack slowly widening. Perhaps it would just fracture and break in a matter of seconds instead. Some breaks, like bones, heal given time and treatment. Others, twist and contort so much that the pieces no longer look like they were once part of a whole.


A/N: Done for the 100 themes challenge on DeviantArt, Theme 6, Variation 2

It had been explosive. Deceptively placid waters had suddenly bubbled and raged. Golden shores turned gray with silt carried from distant rivers. Trees uprooted and left bare for the world to see. Finally, in the absence of the deafening thunder, there was silence. The sun struggled through the clouds and cast its first rays of weak light. Normalcy would return slowly but it would, even with the landscape sculpted into something new.

There would be new bridges and new streets. They would serve their purpose well enough but the previous ones would remain alive in the memories of the inhabitants. There were some things that you just couldn't replace. Things that exist perpetually in the realm of the psyche. Eventually though, those memories would die with those who carried them. The new bridges would be the only ones the next generation knows.

Yet, the old trees stand the test of time. Beneath their shade the generations pass and civilizations grow only to decay. Beneath the eye of the sun, forests spread and burn. Ice covers the earth only to melt and flood it all. Civilizations grow again and crumble again beneath forests strange and unknown.

New things grow old and eventually break under the eternal force of time. The wind grinds down mountains and rivers carve canyons. Volcanoes grown into new lands and continents shift apart.

She lifts her head to the hazy horizon. There was nothing to do but rebuild, continue the cycle. She was tiny, so very tiny, but she wouldn't break. Not beneath wind. Not against waves. So long as breath filled her lungs, she would not break. She would go on.