Of Chaos and Consequence

Consequences, mapped, spread, and stretched across the chaos they so deftly served in their given time, are ordered by unseen forces. We grasp at straws to find reason and rhyme, some semblance of "the why" when the seemingly random shatters our steady ground.

As I look around, the massacre, to the untrained eye, seems, for the most part, an unmitigated disaster, one that beauty has forgotten. To the trained eye, the maestro's vision was one of untapped wonderment. Where crisis and chaos sculpted into something majestic, beyond the ordinary, beyond the...

I stood around, marvelling at my masterpiece. At all that had gone before and was yet to come. The Unravelling, my life's work, was delivered to me as I looked out at the void for an answer to "why" and the void, in its way, responded. The illiterate—those bastards of existence—might claim I was simply playing a score written by another. Oh, if it were—trouble would be calling me from the bloodquake that surrounds me, engulfs me.

Woe to those who look for another, as I stand in their midst. The Reckoning is by my hand alone. Woe to those who look for another. The Reckoning is mine, and mine alone. The shapes that once were bodies, whether those that are still fighting pitifully, begrudgingly for survival or those who have succumbed to their inevitability, now lie still in the wake of my final act.

As the life drains around me, and filters down into the streams that I stand in, I wonder if they thank me, in their cries, or spite me. It matters not. It matters not. Repeat for emphasis, repeat in mantric form, until it becomes the last thing they remember. Before they are forgotten.

The void, The Unravelling, the last great work of magnificent brutality. Serenity accomplished. Silence restored.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is my entry into the unquestionably talented and inspiring Gabriel Huizenga's "Beginning-Endings" Unofficial Writing Challenge, which you can find out more about below.

"Beginning-Endings" Unofficial Writing Challenge

An Abstract and Hopefully Compelling Prompt

Welp, it's all in title: I am very excited to announce the kicking off of another unofficial challenge! I will be blathering on about the inspiration for this and such for a few paragraphs- so if you just want to get straight to the details of the challenge itself, feel free to skip down to the section in bold. No hard feelings, life can get busy. :)

This challenge is inspired by and a continuation of a concept which I developed a bit for Vocal's recent "Self-Editing Epiphany" challenge. I was grateful and honored to receive the recognition of a runner-up spot for my enigmatic reflections, and felt inspired to invite more folks to participate in this quirky and abstract prompt. I will include here an excerpt from the article in which I first discussed the concept, as well as the link to the piece from which this is borrowed, for those who are interested:

"What is a beginning-ending, you ask? Well, it's in the name: it is a scene or moment which appears at both the beginning and ending of a story - as both the prologue and epilogue of a tale, in other words. If the author is good enough, a beginning-ending will be granted by the story that occurs between it's two appearances a new profundity and significance when encountered for the second time. We will see the scene with new eyes, as it were, even as it unfolds in an identical fashion. The aforementioned good author will hopefully also be able to capture a sufficient measure of mystery and wonder in the first run-through of the scene, of course, so as to keep readers intrigued enough to follow along into the rest of the story."

Before getting into the details of the challenge, I want to mention a secondary inspiration behind creating it: In this phase of life, it is unfortunately quite impossible for me to remain as up-to-date on all of the wonderful things so many of you write and share on this site. Therefore, I am starting this challenge up in part as a way to guarantee that I will make the time to read, appreciate, and respond to at least some new, brilliant writing produced by friends on this site! There are so many geniuses, storytellers, and artists in this community, and even if I had days twice as long I wouldn't come close to having enough time to appreciating you all. So if it piques your interest, I humbly extend an invitation to this challenge to YOU, reader! Whomever you may be, I know I would love to read what you come up with, and would be honored at the chance to respond to your work.

But enough dilly-dallying! I present here now the framework of my "Beginning-Endings" Unofficial Writing Challenge:

The challenge is to write a brief fiction piece which, without context, carries the feeling that it could serve as both the prol