Pud Comes Good

I’m no longer getting any inspiration from sitting in this night club night after night. But there was a brief moment when the pounding on my brain almost felt good. Do not touch the handrails. Do not touch the walls. Just look straight ahead and get to the fresh air. The ringing in my ears is some comfort in the quiet lonely street. Just the hissing of spray paint from the alleyways.

I know last week you think I made it all up. And even I thought he was joking. But now I have the letter to prove it. And now I must try to remember what I promised. It’s Pud; from last week’s post. It looks like he wasn’t joking after all:

Bury me on the Moon - A letter from Pud

“The time has come to declare this - bury me on the moon, placed in the heavens, where our legacy will be immortalised. Don’t tease me for what must come to pass. Hear my words.

It will be a pyramid of 440 royal cubits by 280 royal cubits in height. And again you mock. Hear me now and you too shall see it as it is.

Cast your eyes over our works. Let them speak for themselves. How could such immeasurable treasures ever be taken for granted? Its majesty is obvious to every living being? Your eyes do not lie. Millennia of civilisation, nor will they lie. No other civilisation even dreamed of building a pyramid in the heavens. This we see.

And now having been revealed to you, because we dreamed it, and it cannot be undreamed, there is no other option. It is the fate we must follow.

Whose job is it? There is no one but us who must bear this burden. For having lived these times, as civilisation reached this stage of unquestionable greatness, there is no one but us, and us alone, who must mark the occasion, marking it with a worthy feat, a feat of the likes no other civilisation could ever imagine. It falls to us. It is our duty bound burden, and ours alone. We do not have to like it.

To my final resting place I must take a vast library. The kind of archive to spend eternity with in the heavens. The kind of archive presentable to the gods. The kind of archive that immortalises legends, which future kings send future heroes to recover.

The name “We The People” shall have more renown than Achilles. They shall marvel over us. They shall utter our name long after our feet have ceased to walk the earth. Here we walked and dreamed and built monumental creations. A monument which speaks through the ages only to those civilisations worthy of hearing the message. It says - you will not know of a world like ours. Our eyes have laid upon the grandeur of civilisation of the likes that shall never be seen again. We leave this monument not because we want to but because we must.

We, the favourites of the gods. Who conjured certainty. Who earned good fortune. Who conquered the world and left the others by the side of the road to chase their shallow glory. Our name must live on. Our sacrifices remembered. And our great deeds celebrated.

These dreams are within our grasp. We must prove our power. We must show we did not squander those powers - we didn’t take them for granted like some school child.

We could bury anyone there. We could draw straws. Cast lots. We could find any number of We The People more worthy. We can bury many people. We have the power to do it all. But we shall not.

Please please don’t bury me there, even if you find it inevitable. Bury me with my family. But I know what is fated. And I know why. It’s because I was the one who believed in you. When you refused to believe I reminded you of your lineage and your honourable name. When tyranny knocked, who advised you - do not answer? When freedoms were forgotten, who reminded you? Who revived your faith when your neighbours did wrong by you?

We shall bury only me, whether I like it or not.

My mortal remains must leave this earth with a great explosion and a long trail of fire across the sky. The tomb will be wrapped in splendorous hieroglyphs. There I shall rest for the ages. To keep watch. Guardian of our memorial and our immortal deeds. To keep our knowledge. And to bestow courage on our descendants, that we once stood where they stand now.

Bury me on the moon and I promise never to return. My bones won’t rattle in the night. They won’t haunt anyone of unfinished business.

We shall bury me on the moon. Only me. I only hope I’m dead first.

Sincerely

Pud”

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash