Scorched Earth: A Future History of Planet Earth

The idea simply was. The single Spirit had begun what was to be the test for its being-its endurance and tolerances. It was set into motion by great hands and the power of will, churning the infinite matter and energy and bringing into being the stunning light of a living state. Matter collapsed into itself, separating from chaotic waters the vapours, the gases and ice-imploding into a bottomless abyss that collected everything into one single focus-and not excluding the pureness of the energy itself.

Everything was brought together at one point and at one instant-fire and the waves, also. Everything was made grand and rock hard, held together by their infinite natures and limits.

The Universe simply was. All its heavenly bodies were compelled to turn and to make their way into infinite end, while they grew in nature and in kind, making their firmament and their gleaming lights to be awakened at their first moment of life-their first day. Time had begun, and with its cycles of night and day, seconds and light years, stellar light joined the spheres in moments so brief as to deny comprehension, in a time that spanned infinite dreams.

Light was life. With this life, the ages passed into a third order. As if a single day had passed twice from awakening, the heralding joys of this new-found life had permitted growth to those things named leaves and trees-the fruits by which the life to come would consume and hitherto live.

Perpetuation . . . assurance by tiny seed that beat with life in a harmonious pulse, the genesis of a new life within the ground that would grow to feed the firmament with breath and thus tempting more life to be.

The further ordered time had lapsed. In passing as if five thousand, thousand years flashed by instantly. In these times the Universe was seen as it reeled and smiled, content with the pleasures of being. Freedom had taken its accounting. Life left the dark waters for the light of land. Propagating in their kind they were of dual sexes, soon to cover the expanse of their terran home.

The Thought knew itself. The Thought was life. The Thought prompted into Its Being the struggle to survive in the harshness of its new awareness and substance.

Flesh came from the earth. Blood coalesced from the dew of morning and eyes that could see the new wonder were carved from the Sun's own rays. Intelligence sprang from the swiftness of the clouds covered by the veins and hair, born from earthly grass and breathing with the life of the wind's own spirit. Each substance could feel and find meaning for its life. The flesh heard, the eyes saw and the souls could smell the life to its fullest beauty. The veins of life knew the touch of life, and the currents of blood tasted life's sweetness. Bones claimed life's stature through endurance while new thoughts explored their cravings and their urges. They knew their pleasures and their joys.

Man was the life and death that followed. The thoughts that served him well in understanding his infinite life had set him to prey upon his own kind and in falling from his cosmic grace, he found mortality through his love for woman.

He cleaved only to her. He obeyed and honoured only her. He permitted his gift to fail him for a suggestion that there was more to life than the bliss of a simple and peaceful being.

There was more than long life and contentment in a world of fruitful abundance, to use at their slightest whim. Yet, all this was to pass away from sight when they allowed their manners to fail them. Whims of habit overtook them and tore them from the eternity of the Universe and its Grand Thought. The Grand Thought that no longer would care for them, but indeed set them onto a path of struggle for survival.

Impatience reigned on a tiny speck of universal dust. The Earth suffered from that day when curious questions began to jab at its Heart, and to tear into the very atoms that insured existence. Life was aware of impending mortality and that life, which called itself Intelligent and Humanity, had turned its struggle to live into one of greed and self-fulfilment.

Millennia passed, witnessing countless struggles between the intelligent human beings who warred over arid and barren parcels of land which could be traversed by foot in a fraction of a day.

Love was locked out of the hearts of men, and hate was to ravage the civilized. Hate and greed tempted all whom were alive to hurt their own kind, and to hurt their stellar home, as well. Through six thousand years, minds and souls searched for truth but turned their hearts away, from the few which had come to help them. They allowed their violations to stain and bloody their souls. They carried on as if nothing could touch them in life, or in death.

Mankind took command of everything and like maggots devouring rotting flesh, grew in knowledge and in material things until the very essence of life itself was at their command.

It became an unsure and frightening time in the Earth's history. Mankind had now realised that the total destruction of everything that they knew, and craved for, could happen within minutes. It was destruction that they, themselves, could cause through the slightest whim ruled by hate. Through pangs of anxiety, the Earth itself spewed forth fire from its bowels. The land shook and called its children, that circled close to her, to come and fall to her bosom and to cry with her.

Even the Earth, the mother, waited anxiously for the Idea and the Essence to intervene.