A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words - Our Dark Goddess
This post was inspired by the amazing image below, created as a writing prompt in the Freewriters Community.
Enjoy !
SOURCE Pic is AI generated by @wakeupkitty for this contest
She descended from the stars, coming to us on a pillar of blue fire.
Our world was complex, sophisticated, industrialised. We thought we were the only planet in the galaxy to develop advanced life. Our rockets had visited a couple of nearby moons and barren planets, and we had spent decades listening to space through complex instruments.
We had heard nothing. So naturally we assumed we were the pinnacle of evolution.
What fools we were !
Our materialism had left no room for the divine and mysterious. No room for gods and goddesses, for faith.
Then she came.
Heart-crushingly beautiful. Perfect. Flawless. Ivory skin and raven black hair studded with jewels glowing like stars.
She glided into the Great Hall of our United Nations, where a group of grey men and ash-blonde but equally grey women had convened to have a routine summit on boring economic matters, how to control ordinary disgruntled people and dissident nations.
Everything stopped. Her eyes.... so bright... so blue.... so... hypnotic.
She said to our leaders, "I am your goddess. You will worship me. You will obey me. This is now my world, my plaything."
They said nothing; she hypnotised them, charmed them. They obeyed.
Her arrival had been televised. She had controlled every screen in the world to make sure of it.
We all fell in love with her. We adored seeing our unaccountable leaders humiliated, forced to obey her. A few of those leaders shook themselves to try to break the compulsion and stand up to her. We cheered her on as, with a simple gesture of her hand, she stopped their hearts. Seeing our tyrants fall dead was wonderful.
But.....
Then what ?
She willed a palace for herself into being. All silver, jet black and blue spires, with a throne made of the skeletons of those leaders she'd slain. Never mind that underneath it, crushed to dust, was the city of Algiers. Blotted out in a moment, with all it's people. Do we evacuate the ants from their nests when we build a house ?
She commanded peace. So all the soldiers went home. They weren't needed any more.
She commanded peace. Anyone who committed an act of violence dropped dead, the jewels in her golden armband flaring briefly with each death. They flared incessantly until people learned. The police disbanded, they weren't needed any more.
But our remaining leaders were terrified. They abandoned their posts, or froze into inaction.
We learned to say "No."
Pay taxes ? "No."
Come into work early, or at all ? "No."
Pay for what you just picked up in the shop ? "No."
It was like the whole planet had learned passive resistance.
She was beautiful, and we loved her. We had to. She'd kill us if we didn't, or if we were harsh to our neighbours.
Countless people dropped dead because their emotions got the better of them just once. More died of famine. All those unemployed soldiers, policemen, factory workers, civil servants; no work meant no money, meant no food. Stealing food was certain death.
We drifted like waifs on the surface of our own planet. All with beatific smiles on our faces and a kind word for everyone we met.
Inside, we died.
And she sat on her throne almost inactive, surveying her world, a world falling apart, with that enigmatic smile on her face.
This went on for a year, and more and more of us died. Starvation, bad temper, desperation, and more and more just curling up and dying seeing no reason to live.
Then, as suddenly as she had arrived, she was gone. A pillar of blue fire and she'd left us.
The few of us left alive would have to work out what lessons we'd learned. Try to rebuild a civilisation on her own.
Some of us even missed her, our beautiful dark goddess. And she never even told us her name.
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Now this was a good story ... reminded me of what Galadriel said about why she would not take the Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien's epic ... "All shall love me, AND DESPAIR!" This fleshed out the idea exceptionally well.
Thank you ! That was always one of my favourite scenes from LoTR 😁 I was trying to capture the vibe, but from the perspective of her victims (or subjects, or worshippers...)
I picked it up -- WELL DONE -- because it COMMUNICATED!
Today we see, hear and suffer, but no one does anything. We still believe in fairies, prince charming or beautiful maidens “living on the fringes of reality”.
“Religion” and “Politics”, not to mention the fanaticism that allows itself to be manipulated, “hypnotised or idiotised”...
Thank you ! You're right, there are always people who are fooled and will follow a pretty face without thinking about what is inside.
I can only say WOW and perhaps I can't wait for her to arrive
🍀❤️
Thank you ! I have a feeling there's more to her story lurking in the darkest corners of my mind, just waiting to be written. Perhaps about how the survivors rebuilt with a deeper understanding of mutual compassion and the dangers of tyranny (both internal and external).
She is really a dark goddess, I can't imagine falling in love with her, it will come with consequences if her heart is broken
Talk about nice imagination. You've got a great imagination here. Imagine what you could come up with just by looking at a picture. Beautiful story.
Thank you ! I think different people crate in different ways; for me, I'll either look at a picture, or imagine a picture in my head, and the story will just appear.
You are right she really looks like a goddess.
Your story is captivating and though-provoking! This goddess is power drunk and loves to leave planets in despair. This planet is orderly before her arrival. She comes, upends the structured society leading to chaos and death. Then she ups and leaves!
She proclaims peace but her rule results in death and despair. What an irony! An interesting take on the picture prompt. Well done! !PIZZA 🙂
Thank you ! I'm not sure if she's power drunk, I think it's more that she is so far apart from us that there's no comprehension from her to us, or the other way around.
We can't understand her motivation any more than the bees in the garden can understand human society, and she's probably totally unconcerned about what she sees as the insignificant life forms around her....
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@kemmyb(1/5) tipped @alonicus
Words flow so fluidly about a dark goddess from another planet who comes to almost destroy the World of the writer. What did she really achieve? nothing! She left death, fear and destruction in her wake, a dark goddess indeed.
She just came to lord it out on those helpless earthlings, taking advantage of her immense power for her tyrannical pleasure. Too bad.
Thanks for joining pic1000.