Whispers Between the Circles

In the dim-lit dusk of a shattered world, where shadows gather but souls do not meet, I wandered—a hollow echo of Virgil’s path— between the ruins of ambition and ash. “This is the way the world begins,” whispered the dust-voiced guide beside me, “Not with a bang, but with endless scrolls and tongues too tired to speak.” I. The Circle of Silent Spectators Here, the watchers stand—eyes glued to glass, reflections flickering of wars they won’t fight. Their mouths form words, but no sounds emerge. They share grief with thumbs, love with hearts— void of touch, void of flame. Here are the hollow, the stuffed with noise, stuffed with silence of meaning lost. II. The Valley of Empty Thrones Kings of plastic empires sit slumped, crowns slipping into pools of oil. A leader whispers policy into the void, but his voice crumbles like sand in drought. Behind him, bureaucrats dance in circles— the blind leading the blind to the precipice of the next war. "Abandon discourse, all ye who enter here," their laws carved in the stone of forgotten tweets. III. The River of Forgotten Names Across a sluggish river choked with bodies drift children of no country— refugees without memory, their names swallowed by tides of indifference. No ferryman waits; they wander the banks where gods remain silent, and prayers dissolve. "Are these the dead? Or only shadows?" I asked, but my guide looked away. IV. The Forest of Plastic and Bone Here, the trees bleed oil, their leaves shiver with microplastics. Wolves made of smoke prowl the edges, and the ground crunches with the bones of the extinct. A woman with eyes like hollow stars weaves crowns of thorns from rusted wires. "This is the kingdom without hope," she murmurs, "built from convenience, paid in extinction." V. The Silent Cathedral At last, a cathedral rising from ash— no bells, no hymns, only echo. Its altar draped in fading screens, flickering images of what could have been. A priest without a face reads from blank pages, his congregation hollow-eyed, unbowed. "Here we kneel, not in prayer, but in exhaustion," "our shadows stretched at the world's end." Epilogue: Between the Bang and the Whisper And so the path narrows— not toward flame or redemption, but into a grey horizon where dusk does not lift. For in this twilight of action and regret, the hollow inherit what remains: A world not ended by fire or ice, but worn thin by whispers, by waiting— the slow decay between meaning and dust. "This is the way the world forgets," "Not with a cry, but with silence remembered."