[The Sandman Comics] "Faces of Life" (G)
Aug. 26th, 2011 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtxref_ficAuthor's Note: Written for "fic_promptly"'s Sandman, Death, five forms she has taken
The first form she took on Earth was as a protozoan in the earliest sea, a warm bath of fluid just starting to turn to salt. She swam among the rest of the single-celled creatures about her, watching them feed and subdivide, producing more of themselves, which in turn were eaten by other larger creatures. She even fed on a smaller microbe, experiencing its taste and the feeling of life feeding life.
The second form she took was a sentient one, an early hominid in a colony living on what their descendants would call the African Horn. She watched as they dug a pit for one of their elders who had died, placing a spear and a necklace of lion claws into the pit with him, the first burial.
The third form she took was a bar maid in Athens, pouring cups of wine for the philosophers gathered, debating the meaning of death and whether or not the Elysian Fields were simply a hopeful thought at the end of ones existence, or if death was the beginning of a new existence.
The fourth form was a Heian court lady, looking at the leaves on the maples that surrounded a temple in Minako, which some would call Kyoto one day in the future. A courtier wrote a poem about her gazing at the trees, her pale face contrasted with the flaming leaves.
The fifth form was an engineer on a generational space ship flying out to the stars, leaving behind a dying planet with its resources used up and heading out to bring life anew to a new planet out there in the glowing darkness.
The first form she took on Earth was as a protozoan in the earliest sea, a warm bath of fluid just starting to turn to salt. She swam among the rest of the single-celled creatures about her, watching them feed and subdivide, producing more of themselves, which in turn were eaten by other larger creatures. She even fed on a smaller microbe, experiencing its taste and the feeling of life feeding life.
The second form she took was a sentient one, an early hominid in a colony living on what their descendants would call the African Horn. She watched as they dug a pit for one of their elders who had died, placing a spear and a necklace of lion claws into the pit with him, the first burial.
The third form she took was a bar maid in Athens, pouring cups of wine for the philosophers gathered, debating the meaning of death and whether or not the Elysian Fields were simply a hopeful thought at the end of ones existence, or if death was the beginning of a new existence.
The fourth form was a Heian court lady, looking at the leaves on the maples that surrounded a temple in Minako, which some would call Kyoto one day in the future. A courtier wrote a poem about her gazing at the trees, her pale face contrasted with the flaming leaves.
The fifth form was an engineer on a generational space ship flying out to the stars, leaving behind a dying planet with its resources used up and heading out to bring life anew to a new planet out there in the glowing darkness.
