The Lost Souls Prophecy

Poetic prose short story on the life and death of Mother Earth.

‘There shall come a time in the life of those that stand straight when War will be waged, Pestilence and Famine will reign at its side and death will linger to oversee the rage that ends the age of humanity. This will occur when the demon seed of mankind rules supreme and all perish in their path. Fragile and fearful, they will fall to the fabricated folly of futile feuds and fictitious faiths before their natural end and so will never transcend to the next stage of being; their souls trapped upon the blighted wastelands that witnessed their demise. These fear filled spirits will accumulate, amalgamate and be reborn virtually immortal in another lifetime to seek their way to brighter skies.

There will be five and with them they shall carry the heart and soul of the earth. Should they die again they will take the seed of life from it to end this turbulent time. Then the world will turn grey and lifeless and all that remain upon the wasteland will perish with it, trapped forever in the purgatory of their design.

Heaven shall turn to Hell; Paradise to Perdition, the truth of reality revealed again to those feeble fools who fouled the future.

So beware. Be aware. The filth and fury of your species shall be its downfall. Malice and indifference has blighted your souls and caused mayhem upon the Mother who birthed, nurtured and protected you all while you severed her womb. The five can be your saviours or your harbingers of doom.

Protect the Mother who resides within the five and you shall be spared your own wrath. Her soul will return to the earth and your trust will have been earned. Fail to protect the one who loved you unconditionally and unequivocally and you will be rejected, your parasitic forms shall be inhumed once more so that life anew can be reborn.’

The Five.

One of Five.

Marty had never really seen the point of it all. It all seemed a big waste of time. He understood why just fine; they all believed it necessary to survive, but the way they behaved- rushing headlong from the cradle to the grave, greatly confused him about his own kind.

Marty watched from his seat in the street as they rushed over ground, underground- around and around- like a misery go round. Their eyes glazed; fixated in the haze as they made their way to work each day and followed the latest craze, not realising that each lifetime was a passing phase and not something that they could ever reclaim. Not much point in deadlines or fame, thought Marty and refused to play the game.

He was drunk once again. He had long ago discovered that it was the best way to hide the pain. Although Marty never complained, he simply sought such solace to ease the angst of his tortured brain. He had dabbled with the rest of the rabble, but found that he became lost in the psycho-babble and their inherited urge to constantly haggle. He had no desire to raise higher than those around him. He did not want more than he needed. He did not consider ruthless self interest a sign that someone had succeeded.

Marty would not lie- he wanted to die, but had no fear of the end drawing near. He did not feel depressed no matter how much his free will and love of living had been suppressed, but some part of him knew that it would soon be time for his body and mind to die. So he was gladdened, not saddened when he saw the group of drunken men approached with intent on reproach for his state of disrepair. They made accusations that his lack of a home and disinterest in arbitrary matters such as clothing and styled hair showed that he was the ‘scum of the earth’ and that he lived without care.

He smiled at the men as they hit him again and again. Superior they felt as the punishment was dealt, but soon his pain could no longer be felt.

Marty allowed himself to die on hard cold streets at the booted feet of those that could be anyone a person could ever meet.

The spirit of the mother grows weak.

Two of Five.

Cherie walked for miles each day, carrying water for her family from the far away bay. Drought was always a possibility in this place and self reliance was the only possible way to survive. Despite the harshness of her existence Cherie was happy to be alive. She had suffered much hardship, but her spirit always thrived. Her people felt joy at her presence, she helped them remember how to smile.

Then one day the men came, driving into town in cars and jeeps with their tops down. They brandished guns and machetes, bombs and knives and threatened to take all of their lives if they did not vote to pass legislation for the diamond mine corporation who would ensure their wealth if they guaranteed the electoral outcome with violence as stealth.

Most quickly agreed as they saw the first of their own bleed, but no matter how hard she was abused Cherie refused to use her voice to support a government that would make sure her people would lose. The men reiterated their demands with a threat to cut off her hands, but she wouldn’t be swayed even though her family and friends begged her, dismayed.

‘Please Cherie! Say you will! Please! Do it for me!’

Cherie simply smiled and looked at her loved ones with honour and pride.

‘My heart must always be true and so I do, do this for you. It is how I shall fight these foolish men who believe that might is right and make slaves of their own and delight in showing their physical prowess, when really they’re pitiful cowards!’

‘Long sleeves or short?’ came the militias retort once they realised that she could not be threatened or bought, but their faces all dropped when she said,

‘Kill me instead! Cut off my head, for if you hold the false belief that I have no voice without hands, you should know that I’ll speak- I will vote with my feet or, if I must, write with a pen in my teeth!’

They were enraged by her defiance and used her as an example of what happens to those who were none compliant.

‘As you wish b***h!’ they uttered with hate, dismayed that their power had diminished of late. They brought the sword down, her head fell to the ground. But they stopped with a start, they felt shocked to their hearts as they looked to the woman who’d asked to depart.

Her dead eyes were still wide and they saw she still smiled; they saw that within her the spirit of life did reside.

Then something inside them all died.

Three of Five.

 Pierre scanned the horizon as hope for rescue diminished. He had kept watch for days now and still there was no sign of any assistance. It was not for himself that he hoped. It was for the families with children that found it most difficult to cope. The hurricane brought deluge and left them seeking refuge as the waters close around they headed to higher ground. The disaster had reduced them all to primitives and they scavenged to survive uninhibited.

 No longer was civility a useful illusion as, in amongst the death, devastation and confusion, survivors, covered in cuts and contusions, banded together with one aim as their fusion. Escape from this place was their single focus as diseased, drifting corpses reminded them of the onus on themselves, for their loved ones they had to be strong. No help was forthcoming from the leaders of this first world nation- they had been abandoned; left to die slowly of pestilence, malnutrition and starvation.

Pierre had volunteered to stay out in the open without much encouragement. Five long days had passed by without any nourishment, but better he than them, he asserted once again. He was young, fit and able, he’d last longer than the injured, the elderly, the kids and disabled. Those parents and carers that retained their strength would be needed more than he the longer the time went. Pierre was a loner with no family here, he had travelled the nation without any fear and found a true place where people still talked face to face. A humanitarian, a vegetarian- he refused to abuse the beauty of life.

Perhaps then, this would be his final sacrifice- a martyr to the cause of those left to their plight. Nature had wreaked havoc and the levy’s had broke- now the city stood in flood, destruction and deadly smoke that choked the life from the living. The situation was as unforgiving as the government officials that had not so much as spoken of the natural disaster that wiped away the token community in which moral edicts were still a valuable commodity. Here the people still held sway, so while they were washed away, the powers that be had opportunistically turned the other way. Rebuilding would commence, following a brief time of recompense, and the local infrastructure could be replaced by homogenised stores of the mad, blind butcher. There would be new legislation to ensure the profit of the thus far thwarted corporations. Their end was a godsend that inaction and none maintenance had helped to portend.

Still, Pierre held the protestor banner that he hoped would be picked up by a helicopter television camera. ‘Look at us!’ it said, ‘We’ve all been left for dead! Don’t condemn your own- turn on them instead!’

Pierre was in the lens, however, the focus of a marksman for thinking he was clever. The president saw this one man furore, then, with scant debate, decided to protect the interests of the state and from many miles away he ordered that Pierre die that very day.

Pierre knew his time had come and welcomed the projectile from the gun. If his body is ever found it will send out a message that resounds.

 ‘Martial law is necessary when state enforcement fails, or else anarchy prevails- this is an example of the looting and shooting that carries on unabated when there’s an emergency of the state.’

The mother is dying again.

Four of Five.

Richard was rich- a philanthropist. He was born lucky, but was not greedy. He used his wealth to help the underprivileged and the needy. Despised by his peers; reviled for their fears that caring and sharing would bring the end of extravagance near. He became ostracised by the ones that had the most to hide, for setting the challenge to restore the earth’s balance. He sought to take the lead in encouraging others with wealth and good health to protect, nurture and feed the majority of people on earth who still needlessly bleed.

No one understood his tactics to turn the world good. ‘Each to their own,’ they would say to condone, the widespread bloodshed outside of their palatial homes and then, after a fashion, they contrived to subdue his lifelong passion. He was ridiculed, called a fool- ignored, abhorred, but much more was in store for the man who had tried to give others a life with donations, protestations and endless remonstration. So the Ladies and Lords swore he’d die by the sword for daring to act so wholly untoward and soon a fabrication would ensure his social and political devastation would take place.

It was easy for them to do this again- so much good they’d made to die through their media informed public eye. A scandal would be all it would take- they knew common consensus could not cut the truth from the fake. He was accused of involvement in supporting terrorism; selling arms to partisans and paramilitaries on deadly anti-western missions. They scuppered his global vision by turning those he’d helped against the very man who they now said dealt in the latest form of communism.

Richard was impeached, imprisoned, stripped of assets, tortured, tormented in division. Removed from the light- placed out of sight; Richard was abused in his cell every night. The truth that he knew had rendered him mad- being was punished for not being bad. His privileged life meant he could not cope, so he tore up his bed sheet for rope and, as some had planned, in the morning the wardens found him hanged.

The wardens looked up at the dead, tortured face and somehow, too late, they knew they were facing the end of their race.

Five of Five.

Isabel came from hell on Brazilian streets. Raised in abject poverty in shanty towns, ruled by wheelers and dealers, murderers, thieves that lived in the shadow of the wealthy elite. Yet as she grew, she knew that wealth gained through violence as stealth would not be the way to advance through the days to good health. They needed each other and so she advocated they each act like sisters and brothers.

Isabel dedicated her life to helping the weak, the meek and the poor, her own, and she turned her small home into a place where the children of Rio could go, safe from the places they would otherwise roam. Safe from affliction- housed from addiction from the drugs and the power that spelled dereliction. Their future was safe in her hands; alone she had made this last stand. In her old age she gained attention from western philanthropists who gave her resources to resist and exist and enable her to persist in addressing the marginalised born to unfair deficit.

But all along she knew, as popularity grew, her attempts to quell discontent would be regarded by others as appalling dissent. The drug barons did not like her way- the more that she helped the less there would be to act as their slaves. They feared that this noble old woman, would scupper the underhand way that they governed. Many grew to follow her lead and the self interested knew they could not succeed if the lowly grew with love and were educated- they must put a stop to this woman they hated. So they paid a young man in their stead to put a bullet through the old woman’s head.

He then took the drugs he’d exchanged for Motherhood- they filled up his veins as he wept.

Then the heart of the world drew last breath and the species would now meet it’s death.

 

Author's Note

Should there be more at the end?