Saturday, April 26, 2008

Pangea Ultima.

That's what they're calling it. 250 years from now, the war between land and earth would have finally settled; it seems that the fate of this planet is to end up divided forever by her own children — Land and water. According to geologists, we will end up back with what the earth was, nascent, primitive and eager. The land will breathe and swell and we might be particles in the air or six legged creatures living in water, watching land crash against the ocean. And we will watch as the mother weeps.

Time now, time right here, he records because he knows he must. He puts red flags where hearts break, he cleans up after cupid. But when the earth's heart breaks, our little red flags will be shaken off. How do you comfort a planet? How do you kiss her to sleep or wake her up? Is time deep enough, does he take the untrodden path when needed?

Now how all of this happens is an interesting read. Oceanic plates will collide against other continental plates leading to something called 'subduction', i.e., the oceanic plate slips beaneath the continental plate, sinking into the earth's mantle. At the same time, continents will be drifting apart, leading to the widening of ocean beds. The normal course of nature is that these two opposing forces are balanced by each other, leading to oceans and continents maintaining their peace somehow. In due course, however, they will differ and the seas will contract, land masses will unite and the planet will settle into a chunk of land and a huge mass of ocean. She will end the way she was born. Foetal, barren and unloved.

This is what a heartbreak is. The violent change of a planet into something unfamiliar, something unpleasantly new, something rippping across, terrifying, it's almost beautiful. This is what a heartbreak is, the final divide between what is yours and what you thought was yours. It is the final point when two opposing forces cease to battle against each other.

Pangea Ultima. Whoever thought.

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