Lessons

Endemic wastelands stretched across a vast sea of desolation, filling the mind’s eye with a scene of apocalyptic proportions. Nothing lay here now save dissolute souls of the defeated, and the dust of a thousand civilizations.

Across a barren world, the landscape remained the same. Oceans were dry, mountains toppled, lakes arid; nothing lived.

Behold a brown dot in the night sky to mark the grave of a once-vibrant world in a dying universe.

Two stood amidst the rubble. Red eyes peered across the handiwork of those who’d come before. To them this bare, inhospitable landscape was a lecture, a mere lesson on a blackboard.

Metallic voices debated the merits of the day’s session.

“It seems such a waste.”

“Perhaps.” said another, reverberating deeper into the dusk of evening. “If there were no more worlds. Yet, this is not the case.”

“Still, there could have been much potential here, if it were only seen and recognized.”

A long pause emphasized the impudence of that bold statement.

“When this world was pristine, I saw it with my own eyes. I saw the arrogant creatures who pretended to rule. And I say to you now, there was no potential here.”

And yet the student continued to protest.

“And yet, I see no signs of our own progress in this forsaken wasteland.”

“No, you do not.” answered the instructor. “See the signs of our victory.”

And with those words, the day's lesson was concluded.

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