theinkwell fiction challenge | Out with new and in with the old.

Some days the rain washes the alley in dirt. It comes down from the hills. Creeping its way into everything. The dirt wasn't the problem so much as what it brought with it. Germs. Evil vile germs. Not your normal human germs. We had beaten our own immune systems into submission. As a race we were winning, so close to breaching the void of space.

So many things fell in the wake of the comet. RXQ-735 commonly called "Ragnarök" cause it meant the end of world. It passed a mere 63.2 million KM from Earth. It was the closest that we had ever been to extinction and the world was abuzz with it.

The media covered it non-stop for the 43 days it was visible. A few of the old cults brought out their best doomsayers. But the end is always nigh. No one believed them or cared. They were right about the doom but not the form it would take.

That "dirt" was mostly digested metals, silica, and hydrocarbons. Whatever it was that came down on us. It ripped through the world we had built. How much of the world are those things. All of it.

Here is the thing the germs didn't kill living things. At least directly. They are parasitic and mostly benign. They use our very own bodies to reduce the world to tarnish and ash. None of us could die without willful effort, and so we lived.

In the early days a few people tried to gather dirt again and refine it into usable pieces of metal. It worked. However, they quickly learned that the germs would eat them up in a few short days if not sooner.

I was one of those poor souls. What good was a knife that wouldn't last or a pot that couldn't hold water. It wasn't only metals that were the problem. Even clay pots and plastic tools were affected. But everyone blames the blacksmith.

This my child is the truth of the world. Everything you make will crumble and fall. Some sooner than others and you will be blamed. But be not discouraged for there is tomorrow everlasting, and we will build it anew each day.

Blame the stars and their hate if you must but it will do no good. Now go gather the dirt in the alley and build.