THE HUNGER
She opens her maw and consumes. Cities fall in her wake. Continents rip apart and spit fire and ash. Rushing waters flood the fields and crush high towered walls, reaching into every corner to drown the scurrying rats. Black and heavy air sticks in the lungs like tar and burns weary eyes. She hungers for the fall. She is the harbinger of the end. And she began as a dream.
One of the first men (he did not have a name) called her to life on a dark night. He looked at the stars ablaze above him and sat in satisfaction, resting in front of his meager fire. The man gazed at the endless sky and whispered to her, coaxing her out of the great Mother void and into something of substance. He and his people needed her, so they created her, molded her to their own purposes. For a time, she was happy to serve.
In her younger days she admired the figure of humanity, as they swarmed around their hives and called for her aid. They won her affection for calling her into consciousness, for giving her an identity. In her name, the people grew in numbers and strength. They began to tame the world for their own. Beasts bowed to them and the expansive wilds disappeared to make room for fertile fields. Water that had always carved its own path, slowly and carefully, suddenly changed its course. The people grew accustomed to full stomachs and satisfied thirst. Men dug into the Earth and ripped out whatever they could wrap their hands around. They transformed rock into tools for creations not yet made, beautiful trinkets to collect, and weapons of war. War, that was her favorite creation of all. It ended in upheaval, in shifting balance and growing power. She craved a catalyst like that.
Both she and mankind prospered. The world was transformed by man's glory and pride, with her pushing them forward, whispering at their heels to make, to create, and to possess. But still mankind was not satisfied. Never satiated, they always hungered. As the years stretched past, she found her belly to be a beast. She lusted for stranger appetites as the world grew increasingly unfamiliar. She found satisfaction in ore pulled deep from the Earth, in fountains of black gold that flowed from great fractures, in polished stone towers that scraped the sky. As humankind ripped into the ground and constructed with its bones, she took her offerings from the aching Earth, from the onyx springs, from the carved obelisks that taunted the gods. She gorged herself on their raging forges and chugging machines, belching black smoke. She feasted on twisted fibers, on toxic spills, and holes punched into the sky. She fed on their kindling, their forges, their machines, and their dreams.
As much as they gave her, it was not enough. It would never be enough. The more they made, the more she hungered. These things were finite and fleeting, as all things are. She had gorged herself full to bursting, and still she starved. The hunger tore at her with its claws. She was insatiable. Something must fill her gaping maw. She realized that what she most craved, after these many years, would be the end of all she had done. All things must come to an end, eventually. And she was so hungry. The only thing that could satisfy was man.
And so she takes back all that she has given. Their cities fall in her terrible wake. Mankind's machines rust, eating away at themselves, and falling into disuse. Oil runs dry and the waters rush in. Crops wither on the vine as smoke fills the sky and blots out the sun. The humans attempt to quell what has been unleashed, to reverse the course of their mounting destruction. But it is too little, too late. She drinks in the fruits of her labor. Turns out, human despair is the most delicious offering of all. Man created her and she is grateful. But this was always how it had to end. Progress can only go so far before she begins to sow destruction. When you can no longer feed her, she still hungers.
Celia Hazerjian, 23, Cambridge, Massachusetts - USA ✯
“Celia is an environmental studies student who is totally not terrified of climate change and humanity's self-destructive nature. She wanders and writes in her free time.”