Final Strains

One last song sounded in the distance on that day

where the earth ceased spinning in its routine,

each activity grounding to a standstill, awry,

while eyes glazed over and hearts sped to a stop.

There had always been the worries how the world

would end with a whisper, a quiet snuffing out,

but no one had ever expected it to happen just like that.

It was as brief as the snap of fingertips, of a piano piece

slowly trilling to its last lingering notes in the air.

Who knew that when the world needed saving

that no one could do a thing about it anyway—

because there was no preparation for something

that had not been a warning drawn in the sand?

The oceans parted ways from the shore, a cleansing

as tides flooded in every direction known to man,

and even the satellites with their recordings began

to crash past the atmosphere and onto once-homes.

The tragedy of Pompeii was nothing compared to what

eviscerated humanity with just a misstep of calculation.

Man had thought himself nearing immortal, all-powerful,

as technology outran all the other spheres of industry.

The zeroes and ones that had been thought so harmless

began to work against every check and every balance,

till the tech became smarter, savvier, than any man.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way—impossible—

but the invisible clocks ticked down to an inevitable end.

Man had thought he had ruled the land and the sea,

had conquered the stars and all the planets in the galaxy,

and had even put the machines in their places, subservient.

But no, this was the ego talking, the ego rising and falling,

until its weight caused the world to tumble on itself.

Millennia later, the next galaxy's voyagers would find

the fossils of humanity and marvel at how something

so intricate, so complex, could ever have perished in such a way.