Ozymandias

The desert wind blew with a howl, scouring the dunes and whistling through the bones of forgotten empires. In the vastness of golden nothingness, two travelers approached a strange monolith protruding from the sand. It was ancient—so old it seemed part of the earth itself—weathered and cracked, yet still defiant against time.

Professor Malik adjusted his scarf against the sun and sand, his eyes hidden behind thick, dust-smeared lenses. His assistant, Aya, walked beside him, clutching a worn notebook, her boots sinking into the hot sand.

“There,” Malik said, pointing with a trembling hand. “Just as the manuscript described. The statue of the Forgotten King.”

Aya narrowed her eyes. Buried halfway in the sand stood a shattered colossus. A face lay detached from its body, carved with such realism that its sneer still exuded arrogance. The nose was broken, the eyes sunken, but the expression remained—a smile of cold command.

On a pedestal nearby, half-buried in sand, were the remnants of an inscription.

Aya knelt, brushing dust from the ancient stone, tracing the engraved words with a reverent hand. They read:

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

She looked up at Malik. “It’s exactly as Shelley wrote.”

Malik nodded, voice hushed. “The poem was no invention. He must have seen this or heard of it through some ancient scroll. A whisper from history that survived.”

They stood in silence, dwarfed by the remnants of an empire that had once dared to defy time.

Centuries earlier, under a sky of blinding sun and unyielding blue, the man who called himself Ozymandias sat upon a throne of obsidian and gold. The capital of his empire stretched in every direction—white marble towers, markets overflowing with spices and jewels, gardens carved from desert rock. His word was law; his gaze, final judgment.

Ozymandias believed in eternity. Not the ephemeral kind sung by poets or preached by priests, but the eternity of stone and conquest.

“Let them write their songs,” he said to his scribe. “But carve my face into mountains. Build my statue so tall that gods must look up to see me.”

His sculptors labored for decades to craft the likeness—eyes piercing, jaw firm, expression immortal. Thousands died in the creation of his legacy. Cities were razed to fund the monuments. Slaves broke beneath the weight of marble and granite.

But Ozymandias did not weep for them. To him, their suffering was mortar for immortality.

As the years passed, his empire grew brittle. Conquests slowed. Rebellions rose. His generals whispered. His advisors plotted.

Yet Ozymandias remained blind to decay.

“My works will last,” he said to the stars one night, standing atop his highest ziggurat. “Long after names fade, mine will remain. In stone. In sand. Forever.”

Back in the present, the sun had begun to fall, casting long shadows over the ruins. Aya and Malik set up camp beside the broken statue. The evening wind whispered ancient secrets through the dunes.

Aya stared at the shattered face.

“Why do you think he fell?” she asked.

Malik sighed, warming his hands by the fire. “Pride. Arrogance. Belief in permanence. He saw himself as immortal—his works as eternal.”

“But nothing lasts forever,” Aya whispered.

“Exactly,” Malik said. “That’s the lesson Shelley captured. No matter how mighty, how cruel, how brilliant—we are all dust in the end.”

Aya flipped open her notebook. Inside were sketches of the statue, the inscription, and pages of notes. But it wasn’t just data. She was writing something more.

“You’re writing a story?” Malik asked, surprised.

She smiled. “A reflection. Maybe a modern version of his tale.”

Malik looked up at the stars, thinking. “Ozymandias wanted people to despair at his power. But now, we don’t despair—we wonder. We learn. We reflect. His hubris became his greatest lesson.”

Aya nodded. “And maybe that’s a better legacy than fear.”

In another age, the sandstorm returns, erasing footprints, reclaiming ruins. The statue will remain buried once more, the inscription hidden beneath time. But stories are harder to bury.

And somewhere, in a world that never stops moving, another traveler will hear a whisper in the wind. A poem. A name.

“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

And perhaps, just perhaps, they will smile—not in despair, but in understanding.

For even in ruin, Ozymandias still speaks.

Not as a king.

But as a warning.