Cain

He winced in disgust, his expansive features stretching out over smooth, taut skin. His eyes still sparkled with the delusion of youth that his actual time spent on this earth belied. His face was beautiful, pure, unlined, his hair was thick and wavy, his shoulders broad. His chest was wide, his hips tight and sturdy. His legs were like tree trunks. He was tall. Yet he did not look obscenely big. His eyes were beautiful, his hands callused with the signs of hard work.

He winced in disgust. He shouldn’t have this feeling. It was slight. Yet he still felt it. He felt everything, even after all these years. Age was not a number that mattered for him any longer, he did not remember how long it had been since he had stopped keeping track. And their numbers did not help. They did not know.

He winced in disgust. His features rearranged themselves into the terrifying mask that showed humanity’s cruelty, only for the briefest of seconds, so quick that you would not catch it.

He winced in disgust. He supposed it was his fault. He had been around at a time when the earth was green, the air fresh and cool, the colors vibrant. This dullness felt like it had been photographed by their cameras, and those photographs photographed and over and over again, until the final image was a pixelated, dulled down version of the original. It was a time when the colors were so bright, dogs could see in them, and not just in black and white. When they could communicate. When these people had not turned animals dumb with their disbelief. He had been around at a time the air had always smelled of pine or fir, or whatever trees grew in that continent, or that area he supposed: there had been only one continent at the start. When the air tasted of earth, and the ground felt cool and soft, and embraced you. Mother earth welcoming you upon her, you knew that you were only there by her grace. When the world had lived in peace.

He winced in disgust. The colors were dull now. The air was poisoned, you could see the smoke spiraling upwards. The winds were tired and weak. Not like the ones of his youth. Even till the Indus Valley Civilization, he could have believed, could have had hope. The winds had been vigorous then. No more. The sky smelled of poison and garbage, their fecal matter painted among the blue. The ground was cracked where there was mud, and otherwise covered in their creations, ugh, gravel, cement, all blinding mother earth. When the world was dying in war.

He winced in disgust. To add insult to injury, these fuckers were killing one another. They had divided into tribes, produced so much offspring that now they were warring in factions. It was not enough that they were destroying and almost had destroyed the beautiful blue planet he had been born on, they were even starting to kill one another. He prayed for a meteor every day.

He sighed in sadness. Surely it was his fault. They were murdering mother earth just as he had murdered his own brother. Because he had murdered his own brother. This was his punishment. A single tear fell down the eye of Cain.