The Dawn of Insignificance

Today I stood, and my knees were quaking. The sun looked overfed as it shined across the globe, overrun with our species. An image was in my head, of a world atlas, unrolled and supine: all those tired greens, grays and blues, and spidery little labels frozen horizontally across the brittle page.

I envisioned my hands, placed upon the sheet, gripping it at the center in hard fists, the paper protesting, more alive than any of us. My hands were dictatorial, childish, brandishing disunity, as fear swelled my throat. I tore it all to pieces and blew the debris away.

Today I had trouble meeting the public's eyes. Their animal souls gleamed disturbingly. I hazarded a look, and their faces froze, still as a photograph. I broke away, but the damage was done, the image had burned, the simian features stored, framed and placed upon the pedestals of my memory's museum: an estranged depth of muffled whispers, of coursing griefs, of scattered leaves.

I waited for peace to curl through me, settling the bile, upset even in solitude, rippling my sanity, which is prone to fits. I waited for the bus to arrive, to take me away from this dilapidated building and its dead displays, back into the city of Life, where humanity counts. I waited for a time.

Finally I saw the vehicle lumbering in the distance, though its progress was painfully slow, stopping frequently to pick up others like myself. I heaved a sigh of relief and tightly clutched my ticket as the doors squeaked open to admit me. I pushed my face up against the windowpane, panting hotly against the glass, as we rumbled our way back into civilization.