The Earth's axis is tilted, which gives us the seasons; Manhattan is a little off its axis, which mostly goes unnoticed; my calendar is askew, and that's somewhere in between. Sic transit gloria temporis, as far as I'm concerned. Would that it wasn't, would that it didn't, e pur si muove.
Once upon a time there was a wolf. Being a carnivorous animal, and being that the little pigs he preyed upon had wised up to his preferred strategy of catching them out in the open, the wolf set about rounding them all up so that he might eat them.
The first of these was a strange little pig, who had surrounded himself with great sigils of sand in many colors. They were intricate, precise in every detail, and the little pig sat in a small clearing in their center.
Even as the wolf drew near, he poured more sand from one small bucket, then the next, shaping a new pattern in miniature with small pipes and sticks. So concentrated was the little pig that he did not notice the wolf’s footsteps as they smudged the outer edges of his design.
So intent was the little pig that he smoothed and straightened the sand even with the wolf’s shadow above him.
The wolf scattered the sand with a huff and a puff, and went on his way towards the next meal.
As it happened, it was a strong little pig that he came across, and a clever one, who together had constructed a great triangular fortress from stone.
The wolf stalked around the four corners of its foundation, and found it to be solid. The pigs had shut themselves up within their monument, shoring up its barricades and repairing the damage of daily wear. So sturdy was their construction that the wolf could find no signs of use, only scent through the shafts left for air.
With those shafts blocked, the wolf left the little pigs to their predicament.
Much, much later, when cracks had widened between the stones, and when the stones themselves had crumbled and split, he returned to the ruins of the fortress and finished what had been begun.
Another little pig, long-suffering and foolhardy, sheltered within a metal frame sunk deep into the earth, whose beams burned bright white and stung to the touch. He surrounded himself with papers, rough, sketched paintings, and scratched line-carvings, and at intervals rapped short rhythms against the bars.
Their faint echoes were overheard in the base of a deep valley where the uppermost ends of those beams broke through the surface, by the little pigs who had banded together there.
It was their habit to gather at the sound, and to interpret its meaning in their number; when the interval between the knocks had lengthened beyond their capability for faith, one little pig was sent down the tunnel under the earth to confirm their suspicions.
The wolf followed him, then followed the little pig sent to find him, then huffed and puffed and blew the village down.
Among the little pigs were countless others who had built homes from planks and bricks, and others who had sewn tents or dwelt in caves, and others had hollowed trees and sailed as far as the sea could take them. Still more, in multitudes, had raised themselves atop mountains and set themselves to watch the lands below for the wolf’s approach.
Many attempted to barter, and others to plead, their silenced shrill protestations serving only as warnings to the little pigs nearby, and the strongest lines of defense were broken as easily as the weakest, so that but a few bothered to listen.
They strategized, in calderas and canyons, in glaciers and deserts, in the deepest and darkest parts of the world, for but a short time before they could no longer.
They planned, and transferred, and built their plans one after another: pikes and guns, torches and cannons, rockets and tremendous defensive walls, traps and mazes, poison after chemical poison.
For those little pigs whose efforts had fallen to the wolf, and for those still building the laser on the Moon.
Thanks for reading.
(And it’s not actually that similar to this, but I did make it The Three Little Pigs for a reason.)
all the best, Orion