The Slow Rot and the Coming Storm

We built it with soft hands, stacked comfort upon convenience, turned our backs to the gears turning in the dark. Fed by silver screens and full stomachs, we let the fire flicker, too drunk on the warmth to notice the smoke. They whispered, “Don’t worry.” And we believed them. We traded vigilance for spectacle, truth for something easier to swallow. The cracks in the foundation widened, but we called them character, part of the charm of an aging empire. When the first stones fell, we laughed. When the pillars trembled, we turned up the music. By the time we saw the beast, it had already made a home in our halls. And now, even the quiet places are waking up. The ground hums with something unscripted, a pulse beneath the broken roads, a breath held too long. Fists clench beneath dinner tables. Voices sharpen in the night. The forgotten, the overlooked, the ones who never raised their hands— they are standing now. The tide that carried us into sleep has begun to pull back. And in the silence left behind, the storm begins to speak.