The Swarm

There was a dull hum blanketing the valley floor. Near its center was a teetering swarm of women and men, from very old to very young. “......tired…...lonely……” they whispered, as if with one voice, dark with silt. They looked as if with two eyes, moved as if with two legs, spoke as if with one mouth. None were ahead, nor behind. They moved like beads of water, rolling on a wet saucer, joining and rejoining the pool in the middle like a fluttering nucleus.

“......tired…...lonely……” The words fell in line between command and complaint. The voice they ubiquitously assumed carried the heaviest of emotions within it--when the words were spoken, the weight of their intention brought the kind of psychic stress on the listener that it physically came over them as deluge of simmering lead.

Behind the swarm, the valley floor looked like a mere sketch of its reality: no longer swaying, soft bristles of green and sunshine, but, instead, scribbled ink, smudged by a sweating palm.

After months of staining the countryside, they made it to their god, who was sitting tall on a great, golden throne. “......tired……” they issued with one perfect throat. “......lonely……”

“You answer to me,” said the god, “I will not be made ill by a minor drip of black mucus.” The god pointed at the feet of the swarm and all heads looked down as if they heard the tinkling of coins dropped onto the floor. The god looked dreadfully at the swarm, because it was a mess gods didn’t usually need to make time to clean. The collective face of the swarm showed less than disinterest as the floor was crackling and grinding beneath them.

Each body in the swarm started to drop, kicking up flakes of hot gold that seemed unaware of the gravity on the mountaintop. From the god’s point of view, little chalky dots that would be heads disappeared from within the swarm. When the last head fell, there was a tattered carpet of beings that were clearly human, lying under some filthy disk-shaped distortion of light and sound. The god waved it away, gently clearing the air above the bulky mat of heads, limbs, and clothes.

The air was clean, and the sheen of natural light seemed to have forever changed its tone. The god quietly picked up the entire crowd from the floor, then pressed hands together and twisted a gentle heat into both palms until the people were gone.

Every member of the former swarm was in each of his or her home. Some were blindly awake while others were blankly asleep. The god appeared to each of them in a dream, either lucid or dormant, giving individual instruction to all.

As they finally woke, they stepped out of their homes with the sunlight greeting them like strangers. Word was spreading fast that the leader of the community, once a faceless speck within a swarm of dust, had had a vision and needed to speak with everyone at the commons, immediately.

“We have been given each our instructions. I know this, because our god has told me in the vision I’ve had, but I have not been told what was told to you. However, in my instruction was included a rebuke on myself and our people.” The leader raised one palm, high in the air. “We have been too quick to give up our freedom! We have been too quick to accept our lives rather than improve them! And, we have been too quick to leave each other behind.

When did we lose so much control of ourselves that we needed to be controlled? Every person will look at his or her own life, if you are able to think for yourself, and consider what needs to change to regain control. Take back your power, my friends. If each of us has their own power, then we, as a people, will be powerful.

And, what of rebellion against the faults within our system? I, nor you, can recall a recent incident where a voice was heard speaking for fairness, or speaking against corruption! Where has the will to act gone from this people? I’m not asking for civil war! I’m asking when our independence became complacency!

And, where has the heart of this community gone? When did the stubborn ribs of men and women begin to hide the soft hearts which used to beat so wildly for each other's welfare? We have been ruthless! We have been cold! We have traded slate for skin and granite for bone--so easily cracked, yet so heavy, and impossible to break.

Do you realize what we had become, before attacking the throne of our god? Do you know what terror we have left all over the valley? We have been a mindless swarm, our feet weeping with entropy! It will take broken men and women to bend down and fix this mistake!”

The people, at this break in the leader’s speech, began taking tired steps back into their homes, one by one. It wasn’t with an air of pride or anger. It was like they had finished an errand that took a lifetime, and, no matter how short that lifetime, they were going home for one, final rest.

The leader continued, feeling the agony of the message being delivered, “We will fight for our lives to be restored! We must! The only alternative is destruction, and we will be destroyed by our own hands!” Less and less of the audience could be seen, and all had turned away from their leader. “We can’t let ourselves be overtaken! We will have blood stained on our skin and stamped under our feet, and the blood will be our own!”

The crowd was gone. The leader felt the emptiness of twilight.

A breeze was noticeably absent. Even if there was one, it seemed it would have blown straight down from the sky, because, suddenly, each of the peoples’ homes fell, crumbling apart into airy chaff. The leader was steeled with shock.

Now, as if waking from a headache, the god’s eyes opened to an empty room, lined with gold. The throne somehow felt harder than it did moments before.