Flash Friday: Hidden

by Michael Seese

As promised, here is my entry for the 11/20 Flash Friday competition. Below is our prompt photo which, though hard to see. are termite mounds in Australia. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we had to include something/someone unseen OR include something/someone foreseen, with a word count between  180 and 190 words.

I wanted to work off the idea of termites eroding the foundation of something, and settled on the metaphorical "Hidden."

We toil in darkness, deep below the surface. 

We search for softness in the sturdy, then attack it.

We gnaw away— silently, relentlessly, indiscriminately— decaying from within the forgotten foundations upon which you built your home, the erstwhile reliable structure you long ago erected in oblivion, then neglected. 

And the beautiful irony is, we co-opt the detritus of your overtaxed architecture, and use it to establish our base. 

You, meanwhile, remain above, oblivious to the creeping rot which endlessly undermines your happy, stable existence.

You luxuriate in the material bliss you've convinced yourself is "a life." 

You ignore the growing sway beneath your feet, convincing yourself it's just a gentle zephyr, rather than a gale force of change.

You titter-teeter, all the while unaware that the entire house of cards you've spent a lifetime arranging "just so" is about to come crashing down upon your allegedly open mind. 

We are hate. We are invisible, yet ubiquitous. We are patient, recognizing that eternity is on our side. And once the time arrives, the moment for us to reveal ourselves, we know it will be forever.  

For we will not be stopped.

 

For the record, it's not really a story, as it doesn't have a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

Oh well. I guess the muse is allowed to take a day off here and there. 

We'll see how this Friday goes.