Crumbling walls still reached for the sky. Forgotten ramparts still rose in an imposing silhouette against the dawn. Drifts of dust and crumbled stone lay all around, in every nook and cranny and crevice. Where once stood a magnificent and immutable citadel, only these sad stones remained, marking the passage of time in undisturbed retrospection of their once glorious past. A millennium of secrets lay hidden within the stones, whispering their stories on the light wind that blew gently through the forgotten passages. They needed only someone to listen.
Slaves had built these walls, stacking the massive blocks higher and higher and higher, until they almost obscured the blazing sun. Slaves labouring under the flag of their Lord, through the unrelenting heat of the day and the ever-present threat of the burly guards’ lash if they strayed from the task. Forgotten people, left to build the glory of their masters in return for their mere existence. To this day, nobody knows how they built this wonder, so perfect in its engineering, with their bare hands, decades of time, and the simplest of tools. Tools they soon used to turn against their cruel masters.
Revolt and revolution were inevitable. Tyrannical masters may seem invincible, but they always fall. All through time, the cruellest of dictators have lost the obedience of the downtrodden. The neglected slaves found their voices and fought back against injustice. These towering walls became a symbol of struggle, of freedom, of justice, of liberation. Voices rang in joyous echoes as the power shifted and the despot was deposed.
The people raised their new flags high, snapping smartly atop every tower, every battlement, bright standards symbolising their hard-won freedom. People lived happily for another hundred years, building more symbols of power and human greed, until another, stronger invader took a liking to it all. An invader from over the seas who grew lustful of the wealth he had seen in this land. More bloodshed, more tears, for a different reason, or was it the same? A new victor had arrived to lead the people. Another new flag flew high that day.
Then came the glory days, when the walls were a symbol of power and indulgence, holding the stories of the rich inside them. Outside, the poor once again carried the nation on their backs to uphold the fairytale within. Life was no better for them now, than during the long-forgotten days of slavery. Stories of kings and queens and lords were recorded for posterity in tapestries and manuscripts, while the lives of the poor were ground into the very mud that they lived in, lost to the shadows of antiquity.
The flags had begun to fade, for this glory held a human price. A lonely, but exalted princess stood atop the tallest tower, staring into the heavens appealing to whatever God she believed in to find a way out of her arranged marriage. Her story is well known, one of the few that lasted to modernity. Her wailing cries are the stuff of legend – tales told for centuries about the chilling howls heard around the lonely tower on windy days. Her personal tragedy lowered the flags forever. Her royal dynasty, one that had persisted for five hundred years or more, was destroyed. Destroyed by her choice alone - to not submit to the patriarchal control that plagued noblewomen of the time. She plunged her kingdom into decades of chaos with one fateful decision. The glory days were lost with one woman’s escape from the harsh realities of her life. A life that was coveted by those who stood beneath her feet, who saw only the lavish excesses while they starved. They craved the abundance of her life but did not understand the cost of her exaltation.
And so it came to pass, that the glorious, tragic citadel was abandoned to its fate, driven by superstition and fear. One lonely, desperate princess had cursed it forever. Wars, heroes, villains, glory and defeat; all resting now with the fallen stones, their legends all but forgotten. A thousand years of secrets were hidden here, that once were living and breathing truth. A thousand summers, of festivals, of celebration, juxtaposed with ten centuries of pain, of fear, of glory steeped in blood. Ten centuries of life, ever changing like the seasons. Ten centuries standing beneath a hot sun, standing fast against the weather and the human onslaught. Ten centuries of glory and bold sacrifice reduced to rubble in the grass. If one looks closely, the faded remains of a flag can still be found, somehow preserved through time, its colours barely visible, lying forlornly in a corner. But even in ruin, the steadfastness remains, the abandoned walls still reaching for the open sky, waiting to release their vast imagination to the souls who dare to dream within their boundaries
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