Idols of Babylon

I have a vision of a great city, vast and ancient, with a wide central thoroughfare flanked by towering idols of gold and silver, stretching endlessly to the horizon. They rise like monuments to power and permanence—monolithic, gleaming, immutable. They must be immortal; they have always been there. But permanence is an illusion. The greatest of these idols, proud and unyielding, begins to collapse under its own immense weight. Its fall is not isolated. As it buckles, the force of its descent leans into its neighbors—lesser, but still mighty—who were never built to bear such burden. They too begin to falter, transferring the weight ever downward.

The pressure cascades, from the grand to the great, the great to the middling, the middling to the modest. Each crumbles in turn, passing on the impossible load. Eventually, the burden finds its way to the smallest and most numerous of idols—those the world barely noticed before.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on one’s view—there are a great many of these lesser idols. Their black-robed priests and priestesses, once obscure, now find themselves thrust into prominence. For a moment, they are treated as oracles, saviors, bearers of meaning. For a moment, the world believes they might hold the avenue together.

But the moment is brief. The expectations placed upon them are vast, unsustainable, absurd. The burden of Babylon, the cumulative strain of a collapsing hierarchy, proves too much. One by one, they too are crushed, not solely by their own weakness, but by the weight of all that fell before.

In desperation, new idols are sought, researched, invented. They are hurriedly placed where old idols once stood. But these fresh creations are fragile, unproven, and often misunderstood—especially by those who never grasped the old ones to begin with. This continues day and night, without rest.

Some hope that the weight might now be shared, distributed evenly across the field of idols, old and new. They believe such balance might save the structure. But this belief is born not of insight, but of blindness—a failure of imagination. They cannot conceive of a world without idols, without the avenue, without the golden towers.

But gravity lacks such limitation. It does not dream. It does not compromise. It only pulls.

And it is perfectly willing to reveal what the worshipers of idols could never fathom: that the avenue might one day lie bare, all idols fallen, the sky unshuttered, and the earth waiting.

Nothing left but footprints in the dust and a shattered plinth bearing the words: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.