Post by redsycorax on Oct 11, 2021 3:27:18 GMT
Several decades after the Cuban missile crisis escalated into the Third World War and destroyed the United States, Soviet Union, Europe, China, Korea and Japan on Earth-109, humanity realised that the irradiated globe's environmental outlook was changing for the worse, amidst ozone layer depletion, poisoned waterways, mutated viral and bacterial blossoms and sea level rise, that they needed to evacuate what was left of humanity's homeworld. It took all of ten years to clear the Earth of the species and its companion flora and fauna, but the development of interstellar travel took them to Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Barnard's Star, Epsilon Eridani and Epsilon Indi and Earth was left abandoned. So, one might ask, what purpose could there be for any further accounts of what was, essentially, a haunted planet?
++
As he landed on the grey, dusty footpath, amidst the radioactive debris and ruined buildings, John Stewart asked himself, not for the first time, what he was doing back here, almost twenty years after the Justice League had helped free Seaboard City from the shackles of Ray Thompson's tyranny and its collective hallucination. He remembered a conversation he'd had with J'Onn J'Onnz afterward over parallels between Sophocles' Oedipus series of tragedies and the Green Martian epic chant D'Shai'iitreia. In both ancient narratives, the core message was the same- a benevolent ruler presided over a disintegrating city, a just but fair being, but one with a dark secret unknown even to them. The eventual disclosure of that secret did not bring enlightenment, but ruin in its wake as the consequences of hidden and obscured truths fought their way into the stark light of day. People died amidst more intimate tragedies, despite the fact that the collective trauma of plague or war were averted. The Green Lantern picked up a battered tin ring and smiled sadly. Despite its rusted facade, scorch marks and discolouration, the talisman was still recognisable as a Justice Guild of America 'junior membership ring.' He stood and walked toward the fallen brownstone that had once housed the JGA.
As he stepped through the shattered wall and looked around, he saw the Justice Guild's in-house movietone theatre. From his memories of Earth-One's Justice Guild of America comic, he knew that would be there- no doubt that the authors of what they had believed to be the JGA's "fictional" exploits rationalised it by using it as a framing device to retell and reprint earlier stories about the group from past issues. They had had no idea that it really did exist on this alternate Earth. The area was almost immaculate on the outside, despite the cracked and overgrown car park.
John shone his power ring through the abandoned theatre hall. As he gazed around the projection room, he spotted a twisted skein of film. The chaos of the nuclear attack all those years ago was still evident. His ring torchlight revealed gaping holes in its pitted floor, exposed to the elements after the blinding torchlight of the nuclear blast that had obliterated Ryerson US Air Force Base and the Justice Guild members who sought to mitigate the damage to adjacent Seaboard City. .
He noticed that the projection room exterior was surprisingly intact, except for the peeling paint and the absence of visible, protruding projection equipment through the rectangular display spaces. He located a fallen display cabinet, with twisted pieces of metal almost unrecognisable as trophies of the long-vanished Justice Guild and its heroism. The skeletal remains of production reels and film cutting apparatus lay scattered across a table and surprisingly, there was an almost intact projection camera there. He scanned the unit with his power ring and was gratified to find a pristine copy of a Justice Guild documentary, incorporating long-lost associated footage. He had hoped it would be there, from the comics, and his faith had not been disappointed He sheathed the precious memories of a vanished world in a protective bubble and looked around him at the peeling velvet on the viewing room seats and a park bench visible through the tattered curtains.
There was nothing left alive here, no hope, no dreams, not a living soul. Had he been willing to do so, John would have reconstructed the brownstone from memory and perhaps, he thought, he might still do it- only he'd do it on Earth-One, not this haunted, deserted, ruined planet. He moved toward the green vortex inside the interuniversal portal to take him back home- to life, light, fulfilment, joy, friendship and hope. He doubted that he would ever come back here now. Better to leave this world to its ghosts, if any there were. He took in the bare brown and grey mountains, the charred and creaking trees and heavy clouds, as what he first assumed to be snow started to fall. But no, it wasn't snow. It was ash- the debris of buildings, roads, vehicles...and human lives. brutally cancelled from existence in the blink of an eye. Inwardly, John Stewart shivered at what he saw, a lone floating figure silhouetted against sheer emptiness and loss. He stepped through and vanished and once more, there was only the unheard wind and the gradually collapsing ruins of what had once headquartered a valiant, legendary group of crime fighters and peace keepers. His footprints lasted only until the next acid rain, a fortnight later. And after John Stewart had gone, no more human beings would ever walk anywhere within the grounds of this forgotten, lost and forbidden charnel house world.
THE END
++
As he landed on the grey, dusty footpath, amidst the radioactive debris and ruined buildings, John Stewart asked himself, not for the first time, what he was doing back here, almost twenty years after the Justice League had helped free Seaboard City from the shackles of Ray Thompson's tyranny and its collective hallucination. He remembered a conversation he'd had with J'Onn J'Onnz afterward over parallels between Sophocles' Oedipus series of tragedies and the Green Martian epic chant D'Shai'iitreia. In both ancient narratives, the core message was the same- a benevolent ruler presided over a disintegrating city, a just but fair being, but one with a dark secret unknown even to them. The eventual disclosure of that secret did not bring enlightenment, but ruin in its wake as the consequences of hidden and obscured truths fought their way into the stark light of day. People died amidst more intimate tragedies, despite the fact that the collective trauma of plague or war were averted. The Green Lantern picked up a battered tin ring and smiled sadly. Despite its rusted facade, scorch marks and discolouration, the talisman was still recognisable as a Justice Guild of America 'junior membership ring.' He stood and walked toward the fallen brownstone that had once housed the JGA.
As he stepped through the shattered wall and looked around, he saw the Justice Guild's in-house movietone theatre. From his memories of Earth-One's Justice Guild of America comic, he knew that would be there- no doubt that the authors of what they had believed to be the JGA's "fictional" exploits rationalised it by using it as a framing device to retell and reprint earlier stories about the group from past issues. They had had no idea that it really did exist on this alternate Earth. The area was almost immaculate on the outside, despite the cracked and overgrown car park.
John shone his power ring through the abandoned theatre hall. As he gazed around the projection room, he spotted a twisted skein of film. The chaos of the nuclear attack all those years ago was still evident. His ring torchlight revealed gaping holes in its pitted floor, exposed to the elements after the blinding torchlight of the nuclear blast that had obliterated Ryerson US Air Force Base and the Justice Guild members who sought to mitigate the damage to adjacent Seaboard City. .
He noticed that the projection room exterior was surprisingly intact, except for the peeling paint and the absence of visible, protruding projection equipment through the rectangular display spaces. He located a fallen display cabinet, with twisted pieces of metal almost unrecognisable as trophies of the long-vanished Justice Guild and its heroism. The skeletal remains of production reels and film cutting apparatus lay scattered across a table and surprisingly, there was an almost intact projection camera there. He scanned the unit with his power ring and was gratified to find a pristine copy of a Justice Guild documentary, incorporating long-lost associated footage. He had hoped it would be there, from the comics, and his faith had not been disappointed He sheathed the precious memories of a vanished world in a protective bubble and looked around him at the peeling velvet on the viewing room seats and a park bench visible through the tattered curtains.
There was nothing left alive here, no hope, no dreams, not a living soul. Had he been willing to do so, John would have reconstructed the brownstone from memory and perhaps, he thought, he might still do it- only he'd do it on Earth-One, not this haunted, deserted, ruined planet. He moved toward the green vortex inside the interuniversal portal to take him back home- to life, light, fulfilment, joy, friendship and hope. He doubted that he would ever come back here now. Better to leave this world to its ghosts, if any there were. He took in the bare brown and grey mountains, the charred and creaking trees and heavy clouds, as what he first assumed to be snow started to fall. But no, it wasn't snow. It was ash- the debris of buildings, roads, vehicles...and human lives. brutally cancelled from existence in the blink of an eye. Inwardly, John Stewart shivered at what he saw, a lone floating figure silhouetted against sheer emptiness and loss. He stepped through and vanished and once more, there was only the unheard wind and the gradually collapsing ruins of what had once headquartered a valiant, legendary group of crime fighters and peace keepers. His footprints lasted only until the next acid rain, a fortnight later. And after John Stewart had gone, no more human beings would ever walk anywhere within the grounds of this forgotten, lost and forbidden charnel house world.
THE END