Footprints Are Just Stickers
When the clock fell down, the time fell down with it.
The small legs of the ballerina on the face of the clock shattered,
and the hundreds of hours it had marked were suddenly non-existent.
At least, that’s how it seemed.
Hundreds of identical clocks with hundreds of identical spinning ballerinas had marked those same hundreds of hours.
At least, that’s how it seemed.
If those clocks were all identical, shouldn’t they live identical lives?
Shouldn’t one person simply purchase all of the clocks in one fell swoop, rather than by only one, causing them to worry about breaking that only unique one that they own?
Shouldn’t, as one member of that massive clock family fell, all of the others fall at the exact same moment, because they are identical?
But still, that is a should.
Shoulds should mean what they are meant to-should. Nothing definite can ever come from should.
At least, that’s how it should be.
Except that there was no one there. Where they should have been.
When the painting fell down, the ideas fell down with it.
The strong boards on the back of the canvas cracked, and the image that they had supported was suddenly crumpled, the paint peeling.
Except for a little bit.
In the bottom corners of the painting, square inches of paint stood proudly, their colors as bright as always.
They still held their shape, they still held the small imprints that the paintbrush had carved into it a while back.
Except a while back, they had not been a little bit.
A while back was two months.
A while back was 3 years, or 4 decades, or 5 million trillion millennia.
But no one was there to see the painting fall, and so
a while back was just a while back.
No one was a while back, and no one will a while back.
When the tower fell down, the pride fell with it.
The heavy bricks tumbled down as the tower collapsed, and they hit the hard frozen ground.
One.
By.
One.
Until it stopped.
The bricks had hit the ground, and they were just bricks. Not one of them was a part of anything. They were tiny small puny insignificant pieces of nothing except for what they were. There was no point. What’s the point?
Until it stopped.
There was no one there, and so the dust fell at the same moment that it rose.
But then, who really cares?