How To Build Utopia

Khaira stood at the cliff’s edge, looking out over the world she’d wrought, and proclaimed it was good. Not since the apple had a human being seen such a Utopia. A thousand times the great Generals had claimed peace amongst the nations was impossible. Too many profited from the Great War of Attrition (not them of course). The engines of industry and strife, oiled and maintained by so many of the same companies with the same shareholders, had finally run out of fuel in the new world she had created. Now, she could hear peace being screamed by a chaotic rainbow amongst the trees behind her. Birds whose songs would not be cut short by bombs. In that same forest, deer leaped through beams of light and the underbrush to escape the drooling mouths of hungry wolves. The deer’s flesh may be stripped from their bones to feed the pack, or the wolves might waste away if they fail. All as nature intended. Neither would be torn apart by shrapnel guns, their rotting flesh left to feed the nightmares that kept Khaira up as a child. After years of effort, her dream that all those vile weapons be laid down for good was realized.

She let a sudden spring rain wash over her, with no fear it might burn her flesh away. Afterwards, she let the breeze fill her lungs. A hint of exhaust underscored the damage man had done for so long, but already the world had begun to clear away the caustic haze and grime. The changes she’d masterminded were already starting to cool the Earth, like a child whose fever had broken. But wasn’t cured yet.

Following in the footsteps of prey and hunter, she crossed into the woods. The last danger to her Utopia lay buried beneath the forest floor. A dangerous beast using the land it would devour as camouflage. Her compatriots, martyred souls, saints of the new world, had eliminated all the other caches of horror.

She hunted the leaves for almost imperceptible air vents, smashing them with the rocks she then used to bury them. She searched her memory for the design of this bunker and located the hidden opening. Khaira set out her tent and unfolded her sleeping bag. Starting a tiny fire for tea, she waited. A dormant disease lay hidden here. It could be hours, days, even weeks before it would be forced to emerge, but she was ready. The fate of her Utopia depended on it.

Sun and moon took turns in their study of this sculpture of patience. Until her enemy climbed out like corpses during revelations. Then she came to life. Khaira felled the scouts with poison darts. Next, she pulled a pin and tossed a black canister filled with the virus she had developed. No human could survive it. None but her and once she was done she would gladly give her life. Earth had suffered the disease of humanity long enough. Khaira was the cure.