Nature's Reckoning Part 2: The Silence of Gods

The crimson dot shone dimly in the night sky, beckoning to its blue sister.

Watching as its inhabitants looked up into the darkness at barren red sand, dreaming of escape rather than using the light to see what they already had around them.

Lush, beautiful trees they cut down in order to feed cattle while their people starved.
Deep, mysterious oceans they filled with plastic and garbage, choking out an entire world—and their own source of food.
Fertile land they overworked and turned to dust to feed their pocketbooks.
Fresh, clean water they pumped from the ground into poisoned plastic bottles, used once and thrown into burial grounds of trash.

The crimson dot spun silently, watching her sister’s beauty fade under the abuse of her inhabitants—creatures who reached out to her while trampling on the gifts they'd already been bestowed.

The atmosphere grew thick with smoke and smog as Blue continued her run around her glowing orb.
Species that had long inhabited her bountiful lands and waters vanished without a trace, without even a tear.
Her ice caps melted.
Sea levels rose.
People died.

Mother Nature began to storm across her surface in anger. Floods, fires, hurricanes, and storms raged against her inhabitants, but still no one would listen.

The inhabitants continued to take their blue planet for granted.

They waged wars against each other in the names of gods who did not care.
They battled over wealth and riches while trampling their fellow beings.
They worked only to feed their own egos, blind to the destruction consuming everything and everyone around them.

Crimson spun silently, a reflection of what Blue could easily become without action.
Not as a prize to be won.
Not as a terrain to be conquered.
They had already conquered enough.

Each inhabitant felt powerless against the forces above them, and few took on the mantle of doing what little they could to make things better.
They burned. They used. They tossed aside for the new and shiny.

They decided it was too late.
That what they did didn’t matter.

But what if it was never too late?
What if the power had always been theirs, buried beneath apathy and fear?

Crimson longed for the day Blue’s inhabitants made their way to her. She would show them what they had lost.

She would make them watch as Blue spun in the distance—lifeless, unyielding, and forever beyond their reach.

Read Part 3: The Light of the Cathedral
Read Part 1: The Edge of the World