Wormwood

Years ago I met an older man who recalled to me that he once discovered a note attached to the back of a tree in a cemetary.

The note told a story which had been found in a book of myths, from some distant place a long time ago. According to the story, the book of myths was based on some fourth-hand legends which might have been started by pilgrims visiting an inn in the city, which had originally begun as a goat farm.

According to the account, there was once a great empire on the face of the earth. They built tall buildings, harvested large amounts of food, and they had powerful rulers.

The construction workers built their buildings out of clay, mortar, and brick. In every building, they also mixed in a large portion of wormwood, although no one could feel it in the walls or flooring.

And the entertainers came with their elaborate productions. They put on dances, plays, and operas. The characters they portrayed were full of mirth and villainy and wormwood, although no one could see the wormwood on the stage.

The rulers were very powerful and controlled their armies to keep invaders away. Their battles were full of many victories, a few losses, and they were also full of wormwood, which no one could hear during the battles.

Their empire grew in strength, power, culture, beauty, might, and the wormwood flew through its rivers and language and history.

The citizens of the empire were themselves full of wormwood. Although they could not sense it, they knew it was there all along. They knew they what they were dwelling with, the wormwood they personally carried, and they began to die by the thousands.

As the empire was about it enter its golden age, darkness fell across the land, and the people began to vacate the largest cities. In the final years, wolves roamed the streets of the towns and the fields turned into barrenness.

The book of myths has been lost, and the pilgrims no longer pass by this city. The goats have taken over the land where the inn once stood, and the tree in the cemetery has fallen over. The old man who explained everything to me has passed away.

If I had kept quiet about the empire, no one would know it once stood here. The people who once claimed their land to be the greatest was the land consumed with wormwood -the land that decayed, the land that was totally forgotten.