Sunrise and Bare Branches by Chipka
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
The Apocalypse, say some, is a thing of fire and anguish.
Others--of a more venerable pedigree--identify a ravenous wolf as the harbinger of the End Times.
There are no wolves on Gamma Lepus 4.
The only fires that burn are small and domesticated things. They banish chills from empty rooms, or render meat more palatable to the human tongue.
There are rabbits on Gamma Lepus 4: namesakes to the planet, the star, and the constellation (as seen from Ancestral Earth.) There are men. Women. A growing number of children, though with each cooing brood, they bear less and less in common with their counterparts of a more Terran pedigree. Only the oldest men and women know of the mis-named apocalypse. Those who carry some measure of youth know only the barren cold, the white sun, and the slow/grinding march of glaciers. Trees stand naked. (Teenagers cannot fathom a tree with leaves.) Only the heartiest (or poisonously-mutated) things withstand the perpetual chill in futile competition with native things called lichens and kelp. Such names are little more than improvised contrivances to bring the illusion of comforting normality to aged human minds.
Soon, or at least soon enough, the old ones will yield themselves to necrotic oblivion.
The youngest ones--perhaps no longer human--will invent new names.
But until then, the sun will rise.
The sun will set.
And the imported trees, like the remaining humans, will mutate. Will adapt. Will finish the work of a world adamant in its refusal to become a thing alien to itself.
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I have no idea where this came from, but here it is. I'd once written a story that took place on Gamma Lepus 4, but that was in the long-ago days of my freshman year in college. It's interesting to see how the world has transformed.
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As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope everyone is having a great weekend, and a Happy Independence Day for those who celebrate it.
Comments (23)
Superb lighting.
intriguing image and story, engaging prose
Great shot
As always, you take words and tell us the most amazing story--awesome (oops, there's THAT word again!!) foto as well!!
wonderful shot...!!! love it.
A chilly but not, in the end, chilling tale. The photo fits well!
Fantastic scene and light.Wonderful photo.
Superb capture !!
superb!!!
What a wonderful capture
what a great story and photo.
Fantastic light!!! Excellent photo and story!!!! Hugs...Orlando
I really like this one, there's both hope and sadness here, which goes well with the photo. I think that would have to be the scariest part if we ever do start to colonize other worlds: we'd also be changed by our new home. I think that's why I'm so fascinated by your Nemaeans, they've embraced that, so that no matter how they change, the can also stay human.
Explosion !
What a beautiful scene; and intriguing storylet! A story for the storyteller--so even you don't know where the storyline goes sometimes, eh? Excellent work!
You have a way with words! beautiful storytelling and amazing capture!
Fantastic image and great story line! I love how the one supports the other. Evocative and beautiful!
Beautiful photo!
Beautiful in each and every way. :)) Thank you for sharing this beauty. Carry A Smile In Your Heart :))
Yielding to necrotic oblivion ... hummmmmmm, there are worse ways to go. A most unqiue and interesting tale and image. CC
Wow!!This is fascinating!Fantastic image and story.THANK YOU!!
Stunning! This really grabbed me when I first saw you putting this up and I asked you if it was from last Easter morning. You said, yes...and I suddenly got very cold remembering that particular morning. We'd spent the night at the cyber-cafe and were traipsing home at sunrise, and it was about 30 degrees with a nasty windchill, which seems even colder when you're not really awake. This is a great image, from a morning filled with great images and I like it a lot. The feeling of coldness is repeated in the writing, and in the starkness of the story, but within the bleakness is a kind of clean/cold beauty. It's nicely astringent, like the cold wind in your face in the early morning sunlight.
The photo does an excellent set up for the story. I can well imagine a white 'A' class star looking this way. Though perhaps this star is a white dwarf and not a main sequence member. A cold remnant of its former glory now nursing a second generation of planets born out the wreckage of its old system, after its outer shell blasted out and shattered everything. Now its feeble energies can illuminate a little and warm even less. And growing just a little colder with each day. And one has to wonder, what is it about this place that makes evolution move so quickly in just a handful of generation. A very mysterious world.