something beautiful

It's odd, looking out at the drowned city that used to be the capital, staring at that bone-white spire surrounded by waves, knowing that the end really is coming--sooner rather than later, I think, but it's hard to measure the exact point an empire dies. Most people have fled the old heartland already, and this old observatory won't be safe forever, but one day, whoever survives the end will come here, and they'll want answers.

I don't have answers, of course. But I want them to find this observatory, these texts I've carefully preserved, and I want them to know who we were. I want them to see that there was more than just the hubris that nearly shattered the continent and drowned a city. There was something beautiful here, too. And maybe, if I'm lucky, some traveler will find what I've written here and salvage that beauty, pass it on to their own civilization. 

I'm imagining them sitting in the ruins of this building, as I used to sit in the ruins of the old pre-imperial shrines, basking in the melancholy air, wondering what had happened. And maybe they'll find these old texts and bring them to some scholar, just like me, who'll burn many a candle trying to decipher the language that was once so commonplace. (Will it seem at times familiar, or will it be completely alien to them?) And maybe they'll feel connected, in some way, as I've so often felt connected with the sages of the past, with whom I've communed via their own carefully preserved texts.

And maybe, after all that, something I've archived here will live on, and thrive, and take on new life in whatever world follows this one. I hope it's a kinder one than we've made here.