It crawled

It crawled through the muck beneath the grey stone bridge, under a grey sky as the last bit of sunlight seeped away, always careful not to let it touch its pale flesh. It's victim was just ahead walking down the cobblestone path that quickly turned to dirt as it left the village. The fat bipedal creature staggered a bit but plodded on oblivious to the death that stalked it. To you he would be a man, something who's passing should be morned. To him"it" was not a man, not a father, not a respected member of society, it was merely food and it would be consumed clothing, bones and all. As the food staggered one final time he, with lightning speed, was swept from the path into the now dark woods. The food let out a scream as sharp thick nails dug into flesh and as quickly as it came the scream was squelched as it bit deeply into the mans throat. The man managed only a gurgled whimper as it drank from the abundant blood welling up from the horrible wound. It consumed the warm liquid until that which pumped it ceased and there was naught left but meat. It opened it's jagged maw and, as if it were some machine from the nether regions of the abyss built for the sole purpose of consuming flesh, consumed the man. It then lapped at the pool of bloody bile until even that was gone.

Hours passed as it crept through the night. Another village lay in the valley below. Small wispy tendrils of smoke stream from the tips of chimneys illuminated by the nearly full moon. On the path just ahead another biped stumbles unavoidably towards doom.

I ate a bug

"I ate a bug. It was by accident but the deed is done. They told me not to, they told me that I shouldn't kill or trespass something or use God's name in vain. Words so ancient they have changed their meaning." He spoke these words into the ancient oaken wood smelling of oil soap and sin. "My son" his soft disembodied reply filtered through from the other side, "it is not wrong to eat a bug by accident. Have you some other sin to confess?" I thought. There seemed to be no room for error. The sentence was so short and concise. THOU SHALT NOT KILL. I pictured the burning bush saying this to Mosses believing himself to be plain so as to be understood by even a child. He should have known better, being God. He should have sent a lawyer. "With all due respect, sir" I mustered up my best speek, "when I swallowed the bug I am pretty sure it died. How is it that this is not a sin." There was a pause from the other side. I heard him shift his weight. "The original Hebrew text read Thou Shalt Not Murder. Rasah means murder and was mistranslated in the King James and earlier translations. Since you accidentally killed the bug it was not murder." There was a pause again, "My son. Is there something else troubling you? Surely you have not come to confession just to tell me about eating a bug." "Yes" I said with no small amount of trepidation, "I have murdered w-a-y more bugs than I have eaten".

It is far away

It is far away. Blue against the infinite blackness. A little dot amongst a myriad of other little dots. If I could sigh I would. If I could feel I would be melancholy. From here there is a stillness. An appearance of calm so unlike the pandemonium the last minutes have wrought. The news streams filter in from the webring and I watch several simultaneously in my minds eye as I watch and wait for the end. The chattering clicks and clacks describe the horrors in excruciating details. In an instant I recheck the status of the waiting portal just behind me. My escape, my sanctuary from the fate of those I have come to observe. This moon like many others, free of atmosphere, affords a spectacular view of the inner planets, in conjunction as they are now they will all burn one after the other. As I watch the numbers dwindle on a holoprog superimposed over a close in view of this systems star it amuses me to think of the long count that in a moment will come to an end. No, not the long count of the Mayans, that count has long since run it's course. I consider instead the billions of years that I have counted down to this inevitable moment. The stars fuel is spent and it will soon consume the inner planets. I have chronicled every detail of every weather pattern, every species and their weblike meanderings through evolution, every tectonic shift, every civilization and a trillion trillion other bits of data. Gaia-Artemis-Devi-Shakti-Mother-Nature is a fickle mistress. In your mind I have come through time. In the mind of a shallow three dimensional being stuck in linear time I am magical. In the end I have come to tell you that you are not special. You are nothing in the long count of the endless multiverse. Burn brightly in the time that you have for when that flame is gone you will be no more.