Titans of Chaos

The Dark rule dreams and phantoms of Old Night;

Cimmeria their land, Morpheus their king.

The Fallen rage in Tartarus, lamenting lost delight,

And that virtue, which, betrayed, lost them everything.

The Lost fall through th'Abyss, silent and serene as rain,

Typhon is their eldest, and nothingness his whole domain.

The Telchine are their serfs on Earth,

Ialysus their golden isle, rich-laden with treasures fine.

The Nameless live before all birth,

In Labyrinths of Thousand-walled design,

And, prelapsarian, still laws recall

That Uranus knew before his fall.

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Ships of Sable, Dark and Swift

It was our fault.

We fled the old gods; fleeing, we drew our pursuers after us, so that the frail and mortal men wehid among were in the shadow of destruction meant for us, to be whelmed by the fury of heaven,and malice of the deep.

Here was the great luxury liner Queen Elizabeth II, an engineering marvel of seventy thousandtons and nine hundred sixty feet, as wealthy as a palace afloat, more opulent than what antiquekings in Nineveh lavished on their splendors. For many idle days we five children lolled among thepassengers, giddy with freedom as if with wine, and the equatorial sun hovered, weightless gold,above calm, blue Atlantic waves.

That was then. Now it was night, and the stars hid, and the wind howled, and trumpets sounded,echoing across the black abyss of storm-lashed waters. Clouds like boiling floodwaters fell pastoverhead, and waves like thunderclouds rose and trembled and collapsed down below.

The gods we fled did not want men to see them. The Queen Elizabeth II was struck with slumber:As if that archangel who had entranced Adam on the day when Eve was born without pain fromhis side had shaken dark wings above the ship, the mortals were drowned in oblivion. No one,young or old, could stir, but lay where chance tumbled him, in cabins or passageways, or heapedat the bottom of ladders.

No one human. I was alert, gripping the broken rail and staring out into the utter darkness.

"Why did you two come back?" I shouted. "I ordered you to abandon ship! We will all die if wedon't follow orders. My orders! Didn't you vote for me as leader?"

I have heard that there are grown-ups who do not take seriously the ideas about voting, obeyingauthority, or acting with purpose and discipline. Lucky them. What soft and comfortable lives theymust lead! Lives without foes.