Weekly Creative Writing # 12

Alone, on a green hill, the ruin stands.  The grey stones bask in the sun’s pale light, nearly outside of time, for they show only the slightest changes through the decades.  But not quite all the way outside of its ravages, for some of those which are piled on the ground were once piled high into the bright blue air of a century long lost even to the memory of men.  The birds sang and men laughed within these old walls just as the birds sing and men laugh today, but it’s somehow difficult to envision it, even though you’re standing in their very footprints.  The crumbling old hall has statues flanking the doorway, arms outstretched, as if in protest to the silent and deadly force that is utterly indomitable.  That which we mark and visualize by seconds, hours and calendars.  You let yourself be taken by the hazy memories that seem to hover about, perhaps somehow bound to the place through inexplicable ties.  Or perhaps it’s just your imagination on overdrive.  You stare at what once was the pride of many men, who worked to make a lasting impression on the countryside, to defend themselves, the create a home.  If they were looking for the remembrance of future times, they succeeded, but sadly it’s all we can remember them by.  And then, it seems, pennants fly from the tops of turrets, just for a second.  The stones are once more cutting their jagged silhouettes out of the blue.  You hear talk, laughter, children playing.  Perhaps you’ve come across the memory of one who stood where you stand in a time lost forever.  But your eyes clear and you see once again what really is.  And it makes you think about how your now will inevitably be a lost past, and you wonder what someone, someday, will remember you by.

For my fantastic friend's wonderful counterpart of this weekly themed creative writing project, go to http://thedancingladybug.blogspot.com/