The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Revisioning the Collapse of the Homo Sapien
by Amanda Worthington

Here, the drought endured for decades

Other places rivers overflowed their beds

The tide crept further in

Like it wanted to reclaim the half-evolved things

That stumbled from its foam

Before they were ready.

.

And in the sticks and stones

Covering the nameless remains we’ll likely find beneath

This thin layer of grit:

We see the first cast-off of the New-Poor

Eyeglasses

.

And of all spectacles to behold

These are an older model

They are of old-world glass

.

They don’t make them like this anymore.

.

What was that?

Nouveau Pauvre

Ah yes, you are of course correct

That is the technical term

Commonly known as the New Poor

These were those relatively insulated from hardship

Before the civilization’s collapse

A date which is hotly debated to this day!

.

Anyway:

.

It is highly unlikely that the wearer survived

The weather, recall from your lessons, was temperamental

Perhaps the rain rolled in and the fogging of the substandard lenses

Was seen as a liability

.

It is impossible to know

Reasons are often lost to time

We know of this artifact’s purpose

Mainly because of its depiction

On glyphs alongside

What is clearly the human eye

Found on structures we believe to have been important

In the provision of these aids in survival

.

It’s all tangential, an educated guess.

But that’s the business we’re in

Remembering the humans who once freely roamed this globe

.

And now are dust with the rare intact bone

A propitious find!

.

Their demise is not well understood.

We’re lucky this discovery is in one piece

I fear the inevitable body will not be

We should start digging immediately

This place is unstable

And sensors indicate that the viability window is closing

.

Which leads one to the inevitable question –

What did these foolhardy creatures do?

..

Fiction © Copyright Amanda Worthington.
Image Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose