Long ago, at the very root of all our building, someone made a small mistake. No one noticed it. Every generation added a floor to the tower, a wire to the network, a new machine to the old ones, and every addition seemed wise. But the mistake grew with the tower. The more we knew, the more we built, and the more we built, the less we understood what was holding it up. And one day the whole heap of our cleverness came down on the heads of those who had raised it.
He was there when it fell. He is still here.
Now he rides through what is left on whatever he could assemble from the wreckage of that civilisation: a child's bicycle hung with brass pipes, a small round reactor humming under his saddle to keep the lamps and the music alive, and behind it something that looks very much like a rocket. He wears goggles against the dust and a scarf against the air. And in his arms, instead of a weapon, he carries an accordion.
Travellers who meet him on the ruined roads are always surprised. They find him on top of some rusted platform at night, surrounded by coloured smoke, playing as if at a wedding. Someone always asks him what there is to celebrate.
He always gives the same answer. That we are still alive, and the evening has come.
It is not much of a reason. It is the only one there has ever been. The tower fell and will fall again, the mistake is still somewhere at the bottom of everything, and none of us was asked whether we wanted to be born into such a world. But we were, and so the only question left is what to do with the evening. He has chosen music.
In the world that is coming, the Hunter stands guard with his patience. The musician keeps the feast. And everyone else left between them is busy surviving.
(Fine Art Photography. Created in June 2024.)
