My Lack of Introspection

I've recently found myself lacking the time or energy to seriously take a look at my life and how I'm living it. It might prove to be a blessing later on, as over-analyzing anything your senior year is usually not a great idea. Instead I find myself going through the motions of what any good student should be doing and not having the luxury of being nervous. In fact, Ive found myself unusually calm as of late. I'm sure my true anxiety is manifesting itself in my dreams, but as long as it stays out of my head while I'm awake, I'm grateful. I never remember my dreams anyway.

In other news life is good.

Here's an update on the short story from Hell.


Part II

The sun beat down on the earth with the intensity that was impossible to calculate. Light coming from the star had long ago ceased to be pure white; the rays of energy now hovered on a different end of the spectrum. The light that stabbed through the thick haze was distinctly yellow in color and seemed to saturate the air. Despite the thick cloud cover, the intense heat combined with geothermal elements had long ago destroyed any countenance of humidity in the lower layers of the atmosphere. The air was dry and thin and seemed to break like something fragile into small and tumultuous breezes. The air whipped the land but barely scratched the surface; wind erosion was an unheard of concept. The wind served only to break loose and smooth loose areas of ground. The ground itself was of a distinct appearance. It was composed of hard compacted dirt, mottled gray in color, but covered in scraggly patches by grass. It was a grass of the greenest color and seemed to glow in the muted light cast through the thin air. Occasionally the dry wind would rustle through the grass blowing the blades into sheets of emerald that danced under jocular direction. It was without a conscience that the land was able to exist, and it was without a conscience that the land was without trees. It was an epic land, with large areas of space uninhabited by anything but the earth, the dancing grass, and the light headed wind. There was no life to speak off apart from the grass, and at times their soft, ephemeral whispers could be mistaken for the rustling of the blades against the air. It was indeed hard to distinguish life from the jaded grass. And there were no trees.

In reality, there were trees. Many years ago trees had co-existed with the grass and the wind. They towered above the landscape, not just in stature but in spirit. They dared to do what the grass only dreamed and what the wind could not understand. They were trees of all different varieties, some with broad leaves and some without. But as the years went on, and the rains became less and less frequent, the grass learned how to live without water but the trees did not. The trees died off and the land was barren, empty but for the grass and the wind.

The clouds were the first ones to get angry when the beasts invaded. Their ships burned through the clouds, charring and ionizing the gases they held in miraculous suspension, dissipating entire cloud banks in a single tremendous roar. As the ships lowered their bleeding hulks through the sky, they poisoned the air with tremendous toxins. These toxins were not entirely alien to the wind, but they were unpleasant and served to remind the wind where its priorities lay. It scuttled to a far off corner of the land and would stay there for quite some time. The beasts landed, but the gruesome ravishment was not yet complete. They erected tents and structures on the land, clearing the ground of grass, or as in a few unfortunate cases, merely crushing the grass beneath them. They turned the air humid and thick, saturating it with water and chemicals. These were the chemicals of life, but they forced life where life should not have been. The beasts left quickly, leaving behind the mysterious structures and tents with the rumbling of autonomous technology. The machinery never stopped, grinding away slowly in a mechanical fashion that the ground had never experienced before. After a period of time, the machinery stopped, and the air was still, laced with the bitter after taste of chemicals that were slowly, yet surely being transformed back into the natural components of the ground. It was the state of natural and universal equilibrium that the ground took so much pride in. It found itself lost in the meandering intricacies of chemical replacement and elemental composition, absorbing what needed to be absorbed and releasing what needed to be released, altering the state of things to allow for the variables that the beasts had disrupted. It was time consuming process but at the end of thing, the ground was satisfied with its work.
After a period of time the wind returned. The grass started its slow dance under the cautious direction of the wind. Things began to settle to normal. The structures remained. A great deal of time passed, the ground methodically fulfilled its duties, the grass danced, and the wind stirred the air into frenzied contrails. The clouds were unsettled but for a reason unknown. Something was happening beyond the sky, but the exact meaning or medium of such occurrence was, as of yet, undetermined. Then it began to rain.