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Health & Fitness

MEMOIR… Today's Incredible SCI-FI HYPERSHORT by Anthony Lawrence

Well, these just seem to be getting better and better. Today’s HYPERSHORT was inspired by a simple conversation, but it’s scope is tremendous. Be prepared to be Wowed…

MEMOIR by Anthony Lawrence

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Okay, so here’s the story. I’m a rock, see. Yeah, that’s what I said, a rock. I don’t care if you believe me or not. Maybe you will in time. If a rock’s got anything at all, it’s patience. I was sitting there in that same spot for, oh, maybe a couple million years. What was I doing? Pretty much what most rocks do. They sit and watch and listen. That’s what I did. Now, it’s pretty obvious I couldn’t communicate with anybody or anything. I don’t have the proper apparatus for that.  All in all, back then I was pretty much nothing more than weathered igneous debris, which is just silica, alumina and various other oxides making up the balance. But I still retained some organic molecules associated with ancient microbes. So, the fact is if you have some form of life sustained for a while, it can be there and do something and persist.

So anyway, I was sitting there for all that time watching the rise and fall of a various number of empire builders. Yeah, they’d come and go over the years for a variety of reasons. They fought for security, believing they could protect themselves by expanding into areas where threats might arise. They went to war for economic gain, taxing the people they conquered, collecting tribute in land and resources, taking prisoners for slave labor. Warfare was pretty much justified on the grounds of religious beliefs and conquest was considered the divine mission of the kings. I learned a thousand languages just sitting there and observing. Sometimes they’d make a road or a garden out of me but it was mostly just hanging around.

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Over the centuries, torrential rains and shifting sands destroyed much of the mud-brick architectural heritage. Only crumbled mounds remained as evidence of the great cities. But as one would fall, another would rise to take its place. I saw slavery and entrenched social hierarchies. Some held great promise with literacy, sophisticated architecture, advanced economic interaction and, not least, the rule of written law. But then I began to see the death knell of education despite the fact that these sentient beings were beginning to create modern empires with vast and complex cities. Even in the modern world religion still seemed to retard progression and the differing theologies led to endemic warfare. These creatures just couldn’t seem to create a world that valued all human beings more equally. Criminal and civil law dealt ruthlessly with anyone seeking to remedy the highly unequal distribution of property.

Then began again the violent process of collapse. But this time it was final, not only because cultural patterns were transformed beyond recognition, but because they refused to recognize that their addictive uses of fossil fuels was causing severe and totally destructive weather changes. So even the dark ages gave way to environmental catastrophe and the beings that I thought had such great potential disappeared from sight and once again I was left alone where the lakes and oceans dried up and beautiful lands became seas of my brothers and sisters. Another million years passed silently with only the wind and the sun caressing us.

Then, the Curiosity Rover came, scooped me up and took me to another world.

©2014AnthonyLawrence

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