Temperance
The Emperor looked out over the vast city before him, where shimmering buildings blended with the clouds. A warm sunset painted the skyline a dirty shade of gold, like a woolen carpet of thick sunbeams had been tossed atop the buildings. The hot glowing day still flickered behind his eyes, and the warmth of the sun was still seeped deep through his skin down to the bones. The clouds which dotted the highest heavens began to go purple with night.
Over one hundred meters of cold rock and metal lay empty beneath the Emperor’s feet. The sunlight began it’s retreat, warming only the man’s ankles and shoes. His single and solemn figure appeared dark, silhouetted against a burning horizon.
Turning from the window, he looked towards the dark chamber. The table where the day had unfolded unto and then closed upon shifted from a charming and rich brown into a muted and drab shade as sunlight slipped away. Light had shone onto the faces of those who had gathered here in the morning, and soon the space would be left senseless in the night. The day had been filled with the flushed red faces of temper, matched by the cool blue, sharp green, and careful brown of cunning eyes, and it resolved under the solemn blacks and whites of tailored formality. Now, all hung suspended in dull grey eve. The room was no more sacred than the dry air within it. To those who gathered it was only a place, hardly an idea, and certainly nothing significant. There was nothing more than five sides, a table, and chairs.
The distance to the far wall stretched, and the eyes of the great king tore the room in half. The Emperor’s eyes fell upon its weighty form, as if it were the monolith horizon that had swallowed the sunset. A universe, which separated the forgone past and the unreachable future. In the space between, specters of the day’s gathering emerged. Ghosts of the day’s events danced around and across the table where heated debates had flared, rare agreements emerged, and a constant challenge had pounded through the wooden platform. The table pulsed with the power that had infused into it today, its body hummed with alien life, far removed from the kind that once flowed through its leaves and bark.
A single second of hesitation pressed into the Emperor’s brow.
This place was not sacred, despite what others said. There was nothing more than six sides, tables, and chairs. This was a place of work and labor. Someday, another floor would be built, and a higher peak reached. The sun would shine a degree brighter, for a dozen seconds longer.
The final rays of light crept out the window. The shadow which blanketed the city began soothing the rooftops with the first touches of the night. The table sat lifeless, the chairs empty. The day’s power had faded.
Far in the distance, one hundred meters below, yet still atop the solid earth, two figures walked towards the city, casting only one shadow.
