The Canyon
2 November 2014 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
norwoodSomething original, something a little old, something short.
._____________.
The canyon had been asleep for countless ages. Light never touched its bottom reaches, the jagged rock floor to which few creatures clung. It had never known night from day, and years passed by without its notice. Rain came seldom, staying on the dusty, dark earth only hours at a time. After a while, the creatures that used to give the canyon some small claim to life vanished. All still, the cracked earth slept.
Centuries of dust and wind made up its dreams, with no variations otherwise. It could have gone on like that forever without a care. Then came the upheaval.
It started deep. A low vibration, a whisper of a rumble. The canyon did not awake. Still its rocky outcroppings nearly touched each other on either side, lover's lips reaching for one another, just out of grasp. The rumble did not go away. It did not slip quietly by, unheeded, like the wind and dust and bones. It demanded attention, growing ever louder, ever closer. With a quick and sudden jerk, the earth moved and cracked, pulling the lovers apart and forever tearing the walls that held them.
The canyon woke.
It strained and tried to hold against the heaving earth, to no avail. The canyon was at the mercy of sundering rock and pressure. No more the sleeping colossus, forever unshakable. There is never any such thing as forever, but the canyon forgot in its ageless sleep. There was no time as rock was split further and further apart, as the gap widened and new, pointed islands of granite and redstone were forced up in the middle of the canyon floor. An age passed, and the earth quieted.
It was then the rains came. They cooled the burning ground, soothed the torn and broken canyon, its rocky lovers, once so tender and close, now fathoms apart. It ached for itself, and feared it would never be whole and at peace again. The water slowly filled the canyon bottom, churning dust and bones of the long ago. The once dry and dreaming canyon now cradled a rushing river in its maw. Water bridged the gap between the lovers rocks, lapping at the walls and bringing slow and inevitable change. It kept the canyon from sleeping, kept the canyon from sinking back to the depths of forgotten dust and wind. And the canyon kept hold the sides of the river, giving purpose and journey to the water, and it discovered greatness far beyond that than any of its dreaming before.
The canyon had been asleep for countless ages. Light never touched its bottom reaches, the jagged rock floor to which few creatures clung. It had never known night from day, and years passed by without its notice. Rain came seldom, staying on the dusty, dark earth only hours at a time. After a while, the creatures that used to give the canyon some small claim to life vanished. All still, the cracked earth slept.
Centuries of dust and wind made up its dreams, with no variations otherwise. It could have gone on like that forever without a care. Then came the upheaval.
It started deep. A low vibration, a whisper of a rumble. The canyon did not awake. Still its rocky outcroppings nearly touched each other on either side, lover's lips reaching for one another, just out of grasp. The rumble did not go away. It did not slip quietly by, unheeded, like the wind and dust and bones. It demanded attention, growing ever louder, ever closer. With a quick and sudden jerk, the earth moved and cracked, pulling the lovers apart and forever tearing the walls that held them.
The canyon woke.
It strained and tried to hold against the heaving earth, to no avail. The canyon was at the mercy of sundering rock and pressure. No more the sleeping colossus, forever unshakable. There is never any such thing as forever, but the canyon forgot in its ageless sleep. There was no time as rock was split further and further apart, as the gap widened and new, pointed islands of granite and redstone were forced up in the middle of the canyon floor. An age passed, and the earth quieted.
It was then the rains came. They cooled the burning ground, soothed the torn and broken canyon, its rocky lovers, once so tender and close, now fathoms apart. It ached for itself, and feared it would never be whole and at peace again. The water slowly filled the canyon bottom, churning dust and bones of the long ago. The once dry and dreaming canyon now cradled a rushing river in its maw. Water bridged the gap between the lovers rocks, lapping at the walls and bringing slow and inevitable change. It kept the canyon from sleeping, kept the canyon from sinking back to the depths of forgotten dust and wind. And the canyon kept hold the sides of the river, giving purpose and journey to the water, and it discovered greatness far beyond that than any of its dreaming before.
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