The vast darkness of the unknown, the mystery of life, set man in a fearful quest for meaning. To ward off the terrors of an anarchistic, fate-less world man built the fires of reason and philosophy. Desperate to avoid the darkness mankind clustered to these flames heedless of the pains of scorched self. More pitiful than any beast of the wood, man scratched at the ground and cast into the fire all that wood burn. Soon the ground within the circle of light was barren and man desperate for fuel burnt the very earth that nurtured him, yet still outside the fires radiant radius the cold night yawned vast and unknowable.
It came then to pass that man and his fire stood on bared earth bones, on granite and black basalt. The fire waned and man tore handfuls of his own pelt from his flesh and rekindled his horrid flame, until he stood naked on cold stone bereft he now depended on his dying fire to sustain the warmth of his blood. The naked mass of humanity huddled closer to the flickering flames. When the dwindling inferno consumed the last of humanities noble pelt he turned upon himself in vicious pogroms of basest humanity and cast his brothers to the hungry flames. Repelled by the abominations of his fellows some fled the fire and passed beyond the curtain of darkness into the forest of the night things. Perhaps these brave beasts who had been men found joy in the woods. Some of the man-beasts who had not the courage to face the inky darkness alone, nor stomach to accept the new nature of man, huddled on the terminus between night and mans mockery of day in sufferance. The new predatory nature of man found these malcontents an easy prey, and these moral yet weak beasts were put to the torch. For many generations of humanity this feeding on the twilight tribe has provided the energy and purpose for the fire builders civilization. The beasts of the darkened woods have gathered to watch with glowing eyes the fate of there abandoned brothers. They howl mournfully as we die and gnash there fangs in encouragement as we rise up to fight. You and I are of this twilight tribe, we hear the howling in the woods, we hear the call to arms, we respond. The children are gathering and declare, we will no longer be the fuel for the excess of the light, we will not succumb to the evil in the darkness. It is here in the twilight we stand together. |