Australopithecus

     Even the smartest among australopithecus was just a monkey.  So who am I to think that there is anything I can accomplish which will exalt me to any greater height among my genus?  One cannot transcend his make.  Much like the great australopithecus, broad-shouldered and erect, my only purpose is to spawn.  To contribute my essence to the gene pool the same as any virus that wishes to replicate until it overwhelms it's host.  And what does it benefit a species to breed beyond it's means? Why do we recklessly and unapologetically fuck ourselves into oblivion? 
     The virus doesn't wish to kill it's host.  If that's what happens then it's only the price that's paid for the chance to create it's perfect self. All the virus wants, all that it's ceaseless replication is hoping to achieve is the next great leap.  The iteration that perhaps outwits our antibodies.  The strain stronger than any antibiotic we can throw at it.  So was Aussie's ultimate goal to create me?  I'm hard pressed to believe that I am the end product of any assembly line.  No.  We breed for that small glimmer of hope of one day creating our paramount.  The one shining example of humanity that justifies all of our existence. Our failures.  Millions of years in the making, the child that is our absolution. 

     Certainly the gap between the most useless and deficient of australopithecus and it's champion specimen is far smaller than that of modern man's, so yes, we are moving in the right direction.  The system is working. The question is will we spawn our golden child before we've killed off our host?

I'd never thought I could find a set of collarbones so exquisite.

Pompeii

Our parents said the gods were putting an end to it all.  That they'd become fed up with us.  But after the ash stopped falling the skies began to clear and our outlook changed.  Not back to the way it was.  Certainly not that.
While they all surveyed the aftermath and began the long and arduous chore of picking up the pieces we made our way to the coast.  Our feet and ankles bruised from walking over pumice, we climbed up the hillside. When we finally reached the summit, chests heavy and hands filthy with soot, we looked to where Pompeii stood.

It was unrecognizable.

The Face Of A New Portugal

She married a resolute man.  Very austere.  Many disgruntled would-be suitors would say underneath their breath, 'That's what she gets.' 'It's her loss.' 'Serves her right.', because they don't see him as she does.  They see the Republican.  The face of a new Portugal.  They see how he walks, not hand in hand with her, but directing her with a stern hand on the small of her back.  They don't see the kisses that he places on her forehead when he leaves each morning.
They see how the boys follow directly behind him, with the most erect of postures.  Never can one say they've seen them shouting or running around even when surrounded by children who are.
They don't get the intimate moments when he's not in the public eye.  On the evening hours in his slacks and bare feet kicked up, reading the gazette to the children.  The way he intently closes his eyes with that first inhale of a fresh cigar.  They've never seen him passionate, which he often is, either with anger or lust which in either event ultimately has the same effect on her.
He could be a furious man.  Never has he been sentimental but she could live with that.  She'd joke with him in the mornings while he shaves about how he had the mustache of a Republican and how cliche it was for him to have such a mustache. He'd laugh his laugh which was a mono-syllabic grunt the way you think of a sleeping elephant to cough.  That was all she'd get out of him because that's how he'd trained himself.  He believed someone of his stature should never be so compromised as to be doubled over in laughter.  He was very restrained.  When they were young they laughed together.  He'd once said that it was her sense of humor that made him love her above all things.  He didn't have that mustache back then.

From her bath she could reach her pruney foot, dripping all the way, and rub the back of his leg.  He liked that.