Status: One shot only
There They Stood with No Faces
Chapter 0
The glass cold and icy just like the bitterness of the fresh winter’s morning. On the left was darkness in day, looming clouds of gray waiting, just waiting to storm in on everyone’s parade. The sea in the view was calm and quiet, nothing but the sound of chatting, music blaring in ears and the mechanisms of the bus moving. Yet on the right was the cliff and there they stood, filled a vision of green and creams and browns, the sun’s rays graced their hard barks, there they stood watching us.
A whole class worth of people sat on the bus as I leaned against the frozen glass. Laughing, singing, chatting, cursing, sleeping, did these people realise how cold it really was? Did they know how grey the world seemed on our side? Here we all sat, ignoring all else, all together in this small space of plastic and metal. We are all lined in grey, all lined in darkness, no one wore a spark of brightness, no colour in our world. But over there, on the right hand side on that small cliff looming over us they were, only simple colours, only earthy colours yet their world was so much warmer than ours. Descending down this road on the side of the mountain, there was only one of us but there were so many of them, so many of them that stood tall as though proud soaking in the sun’s warmth. I felt envious, the cold of the morning biting at my skin, I wished I had a touch the warmth they had, a touch of colour and light.
However the only light in this world was produced, artificial, a part of a larger source that contaminated the world. Staring down at my simple Ipod, thinking about the obsessions people felt each day, the drive to get the latest of technology, challenging each other like animals, who has the biggest bone? The next person wants the biggest bone and then slowly and steadily then at amazing speed; everyone wants the biggest bone. Pressing the dull blue centre button, activating the tiny screen to come alight, all sorts of music produced and packed into a tiny device. What was once cold in my fingertips had warmed up, but it was nothing compared to the warmth the bright star in the sky brought. For the warmth in the tiny device only started with mine and gradually as I continued to used it; it itself began to warm itself up.
These tiny machines were like little people, in need for someone to tell them to wake up and seek warmth, however their owners had to be carefully, not to let it get soaked in water; or it might ‘drown’. Not to let it get too hot; or it might ‘suffer’. These devices were like children that could even speak if one told them to, but no. These devices were nothing like them, they stood tall and dignified for they brought themselves up, they reached for the source of warmth when needed, they did not drown so easily, they didn’t over heat so easily.
However, as I returned my gaze to them I watched as their cliff began to slide. Slowly the cliff began to slide downwards along with us on this container of metal and plastic. Metal poles with signs attach called warning to all that descending the mountain, trespassing on their territory. Then slowly they began to thin out, they didn’t stand so close now, they didn’t stand together like a community. They slowly began to diminish.
Fading away slowly as signs on the road and on their territory grew in number, some flat with words and numbers and others with flashing lights. The houses began to appear, first there was only one, then two and then more arose with little signs of their own. Warnings, numbers, advertising for business. It was like an invasion, an invasion of things manufactured by man, things that were made of metal, rubber, plastic, fabric and wood . . .
It was a battlefield, it was clear as their numbers began to diminish faster now. This invasion of grey, of artificial objects, it was taking over. Their world, their life was fading and no one, not a single person turned to look, to speak, to wonder. This earth was being invaded, violated by our hands and no one said a single thing. They just laughed, talked about what they were going to do on the weekend, cursed at the time and praying for the driver to pick up speed or be drowned in their music that screamed in their ears through the earphones of their devices, some singing along while others just slept. No one looked out the winders of this vehicle and feel sympathy, guilt or pity for the world that was dying. That we were strangling with our bare hands. For the world they lived in, for the world they stood proud and tall in, dignified, fill with colour, light and warmth; was fading.
A whole class worth of people sat on the bus as I leaned against the frozen glass. Laughing, singing, chatting, cursing, sleeping, did these people realise how cold it really was? Did they know how grey the world seemed on our side? Here we all sat, ignoring all else, all together in this small space of plastic and metal. We are all lined in grey, all lined in darkness, no one wore a spark of brightness, no colour in our world. But over there, on the right hand side on that small cliff looming over us they were, only simple colours, only earthy colours yet their world was so much warmer than ours. Descending down this road on the side of the mountain, there was only one of us but there were so many of them, so many of them that stood tall as though proud soaking in the sun’s warmth. I felt envious, the cold of the morning biting at my skin, I wished I had a touch the warmth they had, a touch of colour and light.
However the only light in this world was produced, artificial, a part of a larger source that contaminated the world. Staring down at my simple Ipod, thinking about the obsessions people felt each day, the drive to get the latest of technology, challenging each other like animals, who has the biggest bone? The next person wants the biggest bone and then slowly and steadily then at amazing speed; everyone wants the biggest bone. Pressing the dull blue centre button, activating the tiny screen to come alight, all sorts of music produced and packed into a tiny device. What was once cold in my fingertips had warmed up, but it was nothing compared to the warmth the bright star in the sky brought. For the warmth in the tiny device only started with mine and gradually as I continued to used it; it itself began to warm itself up.
These tiny machines were like little people, in need for someone to tell them to wake up and seek warmth, however their owners had to be carefully, not to let it get soaked in water; or it might ‘drown’. Not to let it get too hot; or it might ‘suffer’. These devices were like children that could even speak if one told them to, but no. These devices were nothing like them, they stood tall and dignified for they brought themselves up, they reached for the source of warmth when needed, they did not drown so easily, they didn’t over heat so easily.
However, as I returned my gaze to them I watched as their cliff began to slide. Slowly the cliff began to slide downwards along with us on this container of metal and plastic. Metal poles with signs attach called warning to all that descending the mountain, trespassing on their territory. Then slowly they began to thin out, they didn’t stand so close now, they didn’t stand together like a community. They slowly began to diminish.
Fading away slowly as signs on the road and on their territory grew in number, some flat with words and numbers and others with flashing lights. The houses began to appear, first there was only one, then two and then more arose with little signs of their own. Warnings, numbers, advertising for business. It was like an invasion, an invasion of things manufactured by man, things that were made of metal, rubber, plastic, fabric and wood . . .
It was a battlefield, it was clear as their numbers began to diminish faster now. This invasion of grey, of artificial objects, it was taking over. Their world, their life was fading and no one, not a single person turned to look, to speak, to wonder. This earth was being invaded, violated by our hands and no one said a single thing. They just laughed, talked about what they were going to do on the weekend, cursed at the time and praying for the driver to pick up speed or be drowned in their music that screamed in their ears through the earphones of their devices, some singing along while others just slept. No one looked out the winders of this vehicle and feel sympathy, guilt or pity for the world that was dying. That we were strangling with our bare hands. For the world they lived in, for the world they stood proud and tall in, dignified, fill with colour, light and warmth; was fading.