The ashes of yesterday

 A younger person, one with a mind that is closed might think that there is nothing more to learn. This of course means that there is everything to learn. In the afternoon he toiled in rusted cities which 25 years earlier were mighty and unstoppable. The disease that brought the mighty steel gears to their stillness defined how he walked and talked. Somehow, remembering the glory days of yesterday through the eyes of a child gave him authority and arrogance. Words that only can exist as though he could restore this lost world. Ironically, for those who were born during the great decline, the words only burned like acid raining from the sky.

Photo by Cole Patrick on Unsplash

City after city, he looked for the past, hoping for a sign that the world of his father and grandfather still lived somehow. As he saw the cancer had engulfed the entire land, it only fueled the idea that he knew more than all who came after. A generation's entire composition grew out of the ashes of the losses he found. Oddly, he challenged that essence with the indestructible world of his youth, that world that would never end, and yet it did anyway. He talked blatantly as if the world could come back. The crime would creep away like a high tide pulling away from the land. The wrecking balls and excavators could somehow be undone. The rust that weakened the great steel giants could be reversed and the turbines once again snapped and whirled into resonation. All along, his words were those of what is now merely an infection that could be overcome. But, the reality is, he could never go home anymore. It is his world, not the one he was holding onto, but the one he denied living in.

It is after the shocks to the system, the defeats, the pain, and the admissions that he realizes he is fighting for something that has not existed for over 40 years and that could never come back. The time came to take his place in the crowd.

As the sun rose the following day, there were fields, and they were just starting their reach into the sun. It was beautiful and full of hope. The decayed and long-forgotten cities started to change too. Not in the way that he had thought they should, but with a new generation's ideas and creativity. There was the means to go forward when there was no way to go back. Only those raised in the ashes of yesterday could ever make things better. They also needed his perspective to make their vision whole. Only mutual respect could build a new world.

As he walked through the ashes of yesterday, he could see that the land was thriving, bursting forward into the sky. The only thing that could slow that down was to mourn what once was, what could never be again. He noticed as he became awake for what seemed like the first time ever, that it also made him feel the joy of new beginnings. The most important part of this was to listen and learn from those who came after him. After all, they have not been comparing everything to a world they never knew. They are building a world with the resources they have. It took him a very long time to realize that he was one of those resources.