Pellaz

Over the years, I've started many stories, some brilliant masterworks never hitting the page with the proper words, and others that, when the day dawned, I had to look at and say "What the hell was I thinking?"
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This was to be a sci-fi short story, born out of an extremely vivid image that popped in my mind, of a man standing in front of a grey building. trying to leave a grey world. Unfortunately, I got carried away with exposition in the begining, and lost sight of where I wanted the story to go. 'Others' is a term meant to be replaced. Where else did I go wrong?

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The shop was on the corner of McNary and Rosemont, with windows of steel and doors of darkened glass. There once was a sign to the side of the double doors, maybe, but now there was just a smooth concrete panel. The smell of sulfur was light on the wind here, overpowered by a clean, metallic scent that was almost taste. This was the place I came to, searching.
Earth had been lost over 400 years ago, claimed as spoils of war by the Others. They approached in peace, which we thought signaled their desire to give us everything they had, sort of a galactic date rape. Unfortunatley, they responded in kind. Forty-five percent of humanity was killed within 12 hours of our first use of force. Over the next year, half that number again died as the Others tore across the face of the Earth, subjugating any that did not die easily. A scant one percent of an original nine billion people managed to escape the destruction and indenture of our species using the relatively new FTL technology. Now, the decendants of those left behind are the galactic equivalent of sweatshop workers. With our aggression, we had given away our right to freedom.
The Others did not build, they destroyed. They did not create, they controlled. I stood in first city of the Others, Therinem. Built over the graveyard of New York. Crafted and formed by the hands of the first slaves. It took fifty years. There is very little here that can testify to human craftsmanship. Everything has built to alien archetypes. Nothing extraneous was tolerated, nothing to stand testament to humanities past glories.

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" ' Big Mouth.
Remember it took three of you to kill me.
A god, a boy, and, last and least, a hero.' "

J.R.V.A.

You went wrong by putting down your pen...

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And as she plays,
her sweet song of laughter
floats through the air
and warms my heart