Jerrad Pierce 94, Revised 11/97, 2000

	This is a story about a place they called Earth. The date, unknown...
for it has been many years since there was anything which sought to keep track
of time...

        The winds and sand scour the surface, eroding the once majestic mount-
ains and foothills.If there were eyes they shouldn't detect any shapes upon
the horizon. For the surface has been ground into immense intangible hillocks.
Shades of red, brown and other hellish hues dance in the atmosphere.

       Far below all the turmoil, water works its wonders; erasing all
evidence of previous things just as the sands and winds do above... but it
also harbors life.

       This world is far from being what it used to be...Long ago it abounded
with a great variety of life, ranging from bumble bees to tulips to humpback
whales... and man.

       Man was the the greatest of all creatures, he could do anything he set
out to; and occassionally some he didn't. Man perched at the top of the
foodchain, the greatest of all predators. Few of his prey posed any threat
or challenge to him, for he was the ultimate destroyer.

       In a land they called China around 1300 A.D., alchemists developed the
most destructive substance of their time; black powder. Later man's ingenuity
led to the development of TNT, and eventually "the bomb". With this, man now
had the power to destroy his world in seconds, several times over, at the push
of a button.

       Man, fearing such awesome power, hesitated in using it. Instead he
began to destroy his world as he could have done before, but now he did it
with less thought and at a slower pace. He stripped the world of its lungs,
in a way not much different than the way a smoker does. He saturated the
world's bread baskets with toxins and pesticides. Man unconsciously declared
war upon his world, and all its inhabitants.

       This was a story about a place once called Earth, now it is called 
nothing for there is nothing which cares to speak.