193 Etched in Stone

In a forgotten land, an exquisite palatial colonnade rises from a granite stylobate--foundation supporting its marbled columns. A lofty horizontal mezzanine, contiguous lintel, perches well above the heights of even great men--a circle of architrave, frieze, and ouroboric cornice--that loops for the inquisitive, orbiting eyes that follow it.

It's withstood the acidic tincture of time. Empty, its very structure remains as its sole raison d'être, a self-referential monument to itself.

But it haunts careful observers as a shrine to hidden things. Its serene beauty is a deceit that belies terrible truths.

A laminar ambiance is riddled with an insidious turbulence: there is something foul unfolding that is unholy, riding the inhuman convections and convulsions of an ill wind.

The veins in the columns' marble come together in the mind's eye, depicting what went on here, yestergo.

An inner vision dilates, accommodating a confluence of illusory cracks, lines, and marbleization; this erstwhile grand monument becomes an entablature of horror:

The first column's ferning imperfections present a tableau of anguish on irregular faces that begin to emerge.

The second column comes into focus: a history of ruthless tyrants' quashings of insurrections.

The third column is rife with the machinations of dismemberment as a punitive education for those who learned quickly.

So it goes, like Stations of the Cross, each monolithic column continuing the pageantry of tragedy, pathos, and misery--all man-made--as was this place of cryptic history. It celebrates a twisted parade of our inhumanity.

The final column returns full circle, standing before the first from which this tour of psyche-blistering began.

This return cries with how an end merely begins other repeated anthropomorphic cruelties. There is as little distinction between this last and the first as there is between any two random columns and their segues of nightmares.

This final column depicts the erection of this edifice and those who struggled, suffered, and died building it--for whom?

For me!

And it was built for those who know why it must be torn down, erased, and consigned to oblivion. The reasons are as plain as the lifelines on the palms of one's dirty, damned-spotted hands.

Fear not, "those ignorant of history doomed to repeat it," for it doesn't matter.

_________

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

For Thursday, July 11, Day 192 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title-accompaniment photo was AI-generated but the venous story, etched in stone, wasn't.

---THIS CHALLENGE GRINDS ON, 366 WORDS AT A TIME:

There are currently three surviving Vocal writers still participating in the insane 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer, challenge originator

• Rachel Deeming

• Gerard DiLeo (some other guy)

Read them. Support them. Pray for them. And connect the veins.