forgot about so quickly but when it first happened there was outrage that the streets should be blocked with dead animals. It all happened in a space of no more than four weeks. We never saw a rat after that.
And then reports appeared of more advanced ‘buildings’ built in the sand. There were photos, in those days when we could still communicate, everyone was amazed by them. People embraced the idea at first. A sign of hope. A sign of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. People claimed they were man-made, some form of graffiti or ‘street art’ movement but it was not clear how they could be formed.
At first, some chancers tried to take credit for certain examples, claiming they were sand sculptures or situational art. As far as we could tell, they appeared in several locations around the world and resembled sandcastles, about two feet high.
Slowly there came reports of more advanced ‘buildings’. Disturbed looking edifices, about the height of your average twelve year old. Some of them were covered in intricate patterning, like Gothic stone work. Others had tiny entrance ways, arches, spires and columns.
‘Like miniature cathedrals,’ we said, as something of a joke.
The first examples were crude, somehow wrong, they looked alien, like facsimiles of human structures, constructed without any idea as to the original purpose. Slowly however, the designs progressed and grew in size.
At first kids would play with them. Take turns smashing them up. I remember standing at my kitchen window watching a group of teenagers out in the street. They took it in turns smashing lumps out of one of these miniature cathedrals. It had appeared in the night. Perfectly formed. It looked like a sick version of Cologne cathedral.
I don’t know when the superstition first arose, where the connection with bad luck first materialised. People were dying left and right in any case. Just about anything could be seen as a sign of bad luck in those days. Everyone was pushed, stressed beyond breaking point by that point. It didn’t take much for silly notions to pop into people’s heads. Towns were buried every day, the rate of the sand’s ingress increased. There was nothing to suggest this increase was linked to the destruction of the miniature cathedrals but slowly the rumour spread that demolishing these miniature cathedrals was a curse.
People would cross the road to avoid them. If a cathedral appeared on a street, slowly people would start moving away. In time ‘professionals’ appeared to destroy unwanted edifices. For a fee they could remove all trace of a cathedral from a street, for a time at least.
In most cases, once it was destroyed there would be no further aggravation but occasionally, normally within a matter of days, a replica would spring up. This new version would typically bear some resemblance to the original but with the addition of some ‘wound’ or ‘injury’.
As with their very existence, no one had any explanation for this phenomenon. It was suggested they might be the manifestation of some force, a force experiencing, struggling with, trying to express pain.
It shows how far things shifted in the space of a few months that people started to have any kind of sympathy for sand. Sand, after all, was the last thing that we had believed could hold any type of awareness.
To be continued….
You have finished reading Part 1 of Dust. If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more please help support me as an author and make sure to rate and review this book on the site where you found it.
Discover more by Lochlan Bloom
Visit
http://lochlanbloom.com
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Twitter:
@lochlanbloom
Also by Lochlan Bloom
The Wave
Read the first chapter now…
The Post Arrives
In the end, who can say whether it was a coincidence or not. The story, if you call it that, starts with μ but where it leads and what it all
And then reports appeared of more advanced ‘buildings’ built in the sand. There were photos, in those days when we could still communicate, everyone was amazed by them. People embraced the idea at first. A sign of hope. A sign of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. People claimed they were man-made, some form of graffiti or ‘street art’ movement but it was not clear how they could be formed.
At first, some chancers tried to take credit for certain examples, claiming they were sand sculptures or situational art. As far as we could tell, they appeared in several locations around the world and resembled sandcastles, about two feet high.
Slowly there came reports of more advanced ‘buildings’. Disturbed looking edifices, about the height of your average twelve year old. Some of them were covered in intricate patterning, like Gothic stone work. Others had tiny entrance ways, arches, spires and columns.
‘Like miniature cathedrals,’ we said, as something of a joke.
The first examples were crude, somehow wrong, they looked alien, like facsimiles of human structures, constructed without any idea as to the original purpose. Slowly however, the designs progressed and grew in size.
At first kids would play with them. Take turns smashing them up. I remember standing at my kitchen window watching a group of teenagers out in the street. They took it in turns smashing lumps out of one of these miniature cathedrals. It had appeared in the night. Perfectly formed. It looked like a sick version of Cologne cathedral.
I don’t know when the superstition first arose, where the connection with bad luck first materialised. People were dying left and right in any case. Just about anything could be seen as a sign of bad luck in those days. Everyone was pushed, stressed beyond breaking point by that point. It didn’t take much for silly notions to pop into people’s heads. Towns were buried every day, the rate of the sand’s ingress increased. There was nothing to suggest this increase was linked to the destruction of the miniature cathedrals but slowly the rumour spread that demolishing these miniature cathedrals was a curse.
People would cross the road to avoid them. If a cathedral appeared on a street, slowly people would start moving away. In time ‘professionals’ appeared to destroy unwanted edifices. For a fee they could remove all trace of a cathedral from a street, for a time at least.
In most cases, once it was destroyed there would be no further aggravation but occasionally, normally within a matter of days, a replica would spring up. This new version would typically bear some resemblance to the original but with the addition of some ‘wound’ or ‘injury’.
As with their very existence, no one had any explanation for this phenomenon. It was suggested they might be the manifestation of some force, a force experiencing, struggling with, trying to express pain.
It shows how far things shifted in the space of a few months that people started to have any kind of sympathy for sand. Sand, after all, was the last thing that we had believed could hold any type of awareness.
To be continued….
You have finished reading Part 1 of Dust. If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more please help support me as an author and make sure to rate and review this book on the site where you found it.
Discover more by Lochlan Bloom
Visit
http://lochlanbloom.com
and select
Sign Up
Twitter:
@lochlanbloom
Also by Lochlan Bloom
The Wave
Read the first chapter now…
The Post Arrives
In the end, who can say whether it was a coincidence or not. The story, if you call it that, starts with μ but where it leads and what it all
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