Un-Flesh

Stumps stood where trees had once been, barely recognizable as stumps even, black and charred as they were. A sickening smell came from them. Gray, caked, baked ground stood where grass had once been, hot to the touch, cracking. Steel rods, swaying to the wind, which was still present, just not as strong as it had once been. The only indicator as to what this place had once been stood in the ephemeral humans that had lasted the ravages of nature, and sat in the center of this wasteland, playing chess. A shadow flitted around them, big, hulking, monstrous. Their eyes were red and raged, their movements finicky and fidgety. The shadow was massive now, as if it had been fed by all the destruction around it. The chess game was being played at a speed now, that the human eye could barely follow. The series of chess games, each a battle in the larger war. Each fought for one play in the grand scheme of the End of Times. As they played, the Beings watched from their room above, the Beings watched, and they, these celestials who had controlled matter, and watched over the universe, these Beings prayed, they hoped, they wished, they prayed. Now six beings watched over the games. The shadow, the two players, the Three Celestials. This was perhaps more important than anything else happening on the planet at the time, more important in its scope and size. 

The air was arid and dry. It smelled burnt and moist. The ground was squirming, crawling under the feet, grasping in its death throes and yet very much still. The earth was dying, the sky was dark. Nothing could be heard but the sounds of the pieces smashing on the board, and those too were muffled.

The pieces themselves were worn down, almost, almost unrecognizable for the figures they were supposed to represent. The men had been playing for so long, without break, if they could even be called men, for they did not seem to be bound by the mortality of flesh, they had been playing so long without break that they could tell by touch which piece they had in their hands, they did not need for them to be recognizable. They had began playing when the three had been born. The three who would roll the dice. And here they were, still playing. First, they had used to meet here, where there used to be a park, once a week, playing ‘friendly’ games in silence. When the dancer had began dancing, they had sat down for good. Around them, the world was ravaged. You could see the toll this was taking on their skin and flesh. Yet, they would not fall. Any other human being would have fallen dead long ago. These two did not. They were kept alive, who knows, by what. They certainly did not know, despite all their knowledge, despite all that they had played, and with all the moves that they had changed the world. They did not know.