Soliloquy

When they came down out of the mountains, the first thing they did was build a lodge. It took them three weeks to finish it and when is was finished they began to plow. A thousand years later the city fell to disease. Crowded and dirty, they lived like rats, on top of each other, the streets awash with filth and it was inevitable. Another thousand years passed before it was dust again and lost, no histories to remember that they'd ever been there at all. In a way, though, they infected the soil, not with their disease but with their desires and on the shore, where the river bends to the south I felt a resonance in the rocks, a reverberation in the ground that they walked on and the valley could recall their descent and, equally, their ascent. I never intended that. It was an experiment, nothing more, but I won't try again. I like it quiet, like this. I like the solitude and I like to be alone with my thoughts.