The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

They Ascended
by Alina Măciucă

The man in the hat watched the waves breaking
Against their bodies.
He couldn’t cry a warning out to the others,
But he hoped they heard him nonetheless.
Since his very soul – clunky mosaic made out
Of minuscule pieces his sculptor had stolen
From the city dwellers – vibrated angst.

Waves had already carried their robes away when
They first summoned their gods. Despair, defeat, and ruin
swallowing the sand, drinking the sea, eroding the stone.
The man in the hat knew what the others knew not.

One of them now floated, her blood like an oil spill.
The others raised their arms high into the air
And roared the second call to their gods.
The man in the hat understood the anguish of the sea.

They ascended out of the abyss,
Unfathomable even for the man in the hat who
Kept bits of everyone’s knowledge within.
But fear had already fled, leaving room for resignation
To grow inside his concrete chest.
The fate of the city dwellers, be it slavery or death,
Would be no worse than his, silent witness of
His world’s rebirth in chaos.

Fiction © Copyright Alina Măciucă
Image courtesy of  Pixabay.com

More about Alina Măciucă:

Alina Măciucă enjoys reading, writing, buying odd trinkets, and taking photos of beautifully decaying buildings. She has formally studied religion and hermeneutics at the University of Bucharest, and really has a thing for the Greco-Roman mysteries and Gnosticism, as well as for Renaissance magic. She lives in Bucharest with her very supportive boyfriend, their two cats, and an ever-expanding vinyl and book collection.