LRASTHZ
Read the words and close your eyes
From black and white to azure skies
Black stone sun and wonder foes
Beige grass lands and darkened woes
Floating seas and grounded clouds
Slimy falls and foggy shrouds
Where friends become family
Family turns to enemy
And the Enemy is you.
Dark and light sinks into place on the horizon. The bright night sky swinging overhead like a blade held onto a string in a sharp wind. The low sun’s unseen fire hides far off while the moon’s ladder shines through the unseen clouds. The grass is a soft blanket, lulling and pulling unaware victims into a sleep of eternal night. Nothing remains here that should have been, while all that should not have been live inharmoniously. Those who see the dusk see it through another's eyes, the eyes of the dark mindless soul. Those who dare walk here have nothing to fear, nor did they ever fear within the memory of those who would know. Kraztfon is home to none and a graveyard of whose home it had been. Still, some wander here and never go anywhere else again. Some have seen the Dark Waters, an obsidian mirror of the sky. Some have seen the Teeth of the Land, mountains that grew from the sky and land until it had formed a sharp hungry smile. The plains where the sleeping strings grows over the hills, holding and choking the animals and grass, turning the land into sand color.
The fall of this land is a small part of the world where no nations lives. Did anyone ever dream of such a place? Did they know what they would make? How many like them fell before? Who fell because of them? Nobody will know for long.
Go ahead and ask the questions that may be in your head. Who lived here? We remember not. Who is here now? Shhh. Who will be here next? None can tell.
LRASTHZ was here once and still is. Upon a throne he sits, behind the teeth and beyond the seas where water is blood and poison. Watching and waiting, sleeping and waking. He is neither alive or dead. Never moving but always in motion. It was he who made this. He who was left where the ground forgets his place and the sky keeps far away. He and his brothers, Ehtar and Redale saw it, asked for it, stopped it, and failed.
Of all the beings to call out, to speak, to reach and beg. LRASTHZ was the most wanting. Not power, not greed, had compelled him, but a twisted view of wanting godliness to help. Not to fight, but to save. A love for all those living, both past and present. A wanting to save those closest to him. He had prayed to whomever would listen. And indeed someone heard him and gave him his wish. He praised whatever god of good he knew, but no good had been there in that moment. He was raised a king above his brothers and soon he ruled over all the world with a soft eye. Forgiveness to all and punishment to none. He kept his family and friends of old close with him in the place the ground forgets and sky keeps far away from. Walls of precious stones and metals, unbreaking and unpassable except through the gate.
One day, the king had heard from all he wanted. He cured the ill and settled the arguments and squabbles of neighbors and countries. Peace was all around. Out he sent his brothers; one to watch and rule the west, one to rule and watch the east. Close to him was his friend who advised him. Then a whisper crept into his ear. Ehtar and Redale had a disagreement and sought a resolution. Where did the east end and west begin? Out he sent his friend to help decide, but no word ever returned. Day bled into week, and week poured into year after year until it happened.
Into the welcoming court walked a stranger with a bag. “My lord,” he said confidently with a bow, “I bring you a gift from the people of the land.” He laid the bag at the foot of the steps to the throne. LRASTHZ smiled and thanked him generously as he walked down to it. He hesitated for some unknown reason before he unfastened the clasps. Slowly he reached in and grabbed something stringy and hard. As he pulled it out, the stranger spoke again. “Behold, your servants.”
The king stared into the dull eyes of Ehtar, Redale and the friend. From their eyes he saw all they had done to this perfect world. They killed and waged war for fun. Hundreds had been killed for entertainment, thousands while they laughed and millions in his name. They performed atrocious acts of worse and worse to the people. No bottom was found in the pit of their evil. How could this have happened? He looked at the stranger and screamed.
With deliberate steps he strode to him, the stranger could not move. The king reached for his head and turned it all the way around, but still the stranger lived. Into his chest dove the king’s hands and out came his lungs and heart. Still, he would never slip into eternal slumber.
He saw now what he had not before. Evil is in everything he touched. For everything he did to save this world, he destroyed twice as much. No more did he want this. He cried out loud with tears for whatever had listened before to come and stop what he had done. Stop the evil left here.
Immortal and measured
Never-ending and incomplete
A circle begins where it ends
A wish with total defeat
