Inspiration - A Short Story

Inspiration

The white, ivory waves crashed loudly against the shore – repeated tides of the melancholy sea engulfing the bitter wet sand relentlessly. Raging swirls of surging water smashed against the bases of the jarring dark cliffs, enveloping them in a momentary violent embrace. The cliffs stood, bare and uneven, framing the horizon with their blurry, crooked edges in a dim ominous glow.

They stood like watchful towers, glaring dauntingly over the whitewashed blazes of the threatening sea. Mirroring the nonchalant depths below it, the smoggy sky coated the inky landscape in fragments of ghostly fog. Below it lay a writhing emerald swamp of greenery – archaic forests, trees, fields of endless crystal-like woodlands; a sea of glimmering jaded leaves painting the disappearing horizon in a mass of radiating jewels. Stretching out far into the distance, beyond the ivory sea and jagged cliffs; peaking out proudly in the midst of the clear viridescent cove of crystals, a colossal cliff was erected – a lone, courageous and unevenly arisen; proud of its imperfections.

Its rock discoloured and eroded, its face smothered in a repetitive green moss, and its base consumed by the fantastical greenery surrounding it. Yet, despite its dull grey rock and withered front, it stares fearlessly, its crumbling eyes fixed in an imperative glare into the beautiful abyss surrounding it. A thick white cloud of smoke silently – slowly creeps upon its eastern face, ascending sinisterly and threatening to swallow it whole.

But still – despite the sea and its crushing waves, despite the cliffs at the shore and their menacing envy, despite the woodlands and its rapidly expanding forests, despite the growing threat of the fog and its promise to suffocate it – the lone cliff stands valiantly amongst its countless adversaries; its roots clenched deep into the dark earth firmly, challenging its foes with its unbreakable resolve.

And so the battle continues perilously – the storm of nature rages on and the lone cliff still stands imprudently, bearing and enduring its fated degeneration to the brink of its collapse. Yet still, whilst drowned in the flames of its sworn enemies, the cliff refuses to break. Completely shrouded in the wild undergrowth, staring into the gaping jaws of the malevolent smoke; the cliff remains steady, an unbreakable resolve burning brightly in its core.

This brilliant ember – this passionate flame remains blazing relentlessly at the heart of this immortal rock eternally. Eons pass and the curse of time devours everything, disintegrating every tree, every branch, every leaf; every cell, every atom and everything surrounding it. Until the sun passes across the sky so often, and so seemingly swiftly, that it seems to have merged, and melted into the flickering sky itself.

The world spins perpetually like a forever-spinning counter-top, till it seems to have spinned off its axis, wrenched from its natural orbit. The galaxies are forced into a counter-spin, the stars and planets collide in destructive supernovas successively; ensuing chaos in the bleak void of space and time.

The whole universe is gripped by an apocalypse, devastating and ruining everything in its wake – except that fire. That brilliant ember – that passionate flame that grew from a spark of iron-willed resilience and courage; kindled by its own fiery passion to remain unchanged; that grew incandescent and flared even more spiritedly the more it was challenged and threatened to drown.

This passion – this flare of passion was enough to overturn planets, break constellations and bring chaos to the order of the universe. This miraculous phenomenon that committed a crime so great and unspeakable, breaking every honoured law of the universe in its spirited struggle to remain as just that. But this culpable flame that so selfishly extinguished all universal harmony – is also conversely the only spark of radiance that could reignite the flow of the cosmos and reinstate the entire totality of the universe.

As that everlasting flame becomes the heart of the universe, settled dust begins to rise. From the ruin and remains of all matter, atoms begin to reform. Inspired by the earnest luminescence of that one resolute flame – the worlds and the stars begin to reintegrate. Galaxies are restored and planets regenerate. Every cell of every being is revived and placed back into perfect order and sequence.

The universe is restored to its former undisturbed balance. The crashing waves, the jarring cliffs and the archaic woodlands remain a picturesque, perfect scene. The lone cliff, that stood so defiantly – valiantly amongst its foes, its heart consumed with an irrepressible, fiery passion to live – ceases to remain.

From its worn sediment and aged rock that became dull, fine sand – a being forms.

This being, with its eyes of steel and heart of fire forms from the dust – a man. His eyes full of zeal, keen and fearless; his heart an illumination of his hopes, dreams, and beliefs – he stares into the beautiful abyss of life, the power to withstand and change anything and everything clenched in his fists and upheld in his stance, as he steps into eternity with that unbreakable resolve...