Earth’s Revenge
by Eva Hays
I can’t explain it, but I can hear the ground all around me, tiny sounds, like bubbling, like the worms beneath the surface are writhing in the wet mud, now taking its time to dry out beneath the surprisingly strong February sun. In the distance, crows call to one another, and I hear the softer song of smaller birds too, sparrows and finches. I wonder if they think it’s spring already, with the brightness of the sun, the clear blue of the sky, the ground that’s coming alive beneath my feet. It’s only the sharply cold breeze running its fingers across my cheeks that reminds me we’re still in the heart of winter. Like I’m sitting in the eye of a storm, a moment of calm and warmth that ruptures the cold, thwarting my expectations.
And there—so far away I thought I was imagining it the first time—is a woodpecker, wreaking havoc on some distant tree. I try to imagine what it must be like to be able to move so rapidly, to thrust one’s beak with such force and velocity over and over again into the harsh bark of a tree, chipping away until the soft inside is pierced. We tend to underestimate most animals, yet we will never be able to mimic the cruel efficiency of the woodpecker.
This is the human way, I’ve learned: to compare two things and always find a reason to put ourselves on the top. In every race we create, we cheat our way to first place, drawing away the competition with axes and chainsaws. But we tell stories to keep the facade of our humility, to convince ourselves of our martyrdom: sometimes, the only feeling sweeter than self-importance is self-pity.
Yet in the blissful curse of a warm February afternoon, the dirt reminds me of her revenge, bubbling over in anticipation of it, anticipation of the future in which she will swallow our bodies whole. In which she will send her decomposer army to disarm us in a slow retribution. We may crown ourselves now, but in the end, brambles will grow over our thrones, constructing peace on the corpses of our supposed victory, that we bled, and fought, and killed for.