City

I nearly missed this week's prompt from Velvet Verbosity. Last Wednesday, I developed heat exhaustion, and by the time I recovered, I figured it was too late. However, since I see the new post isn't up yet, I'll add this entry. The prompt was the word city. The challenge is to write exactly 100 words on this topic, in any form you like. This time, instead of a poem or a brief prose musing, I've written a short science fiction story for fun.

City
Our voices still as we enter the ancient village. Even crumbling, smothered with new growth, the ruins are impressive. I know the stories, how they choked on their own folly. I wouldn’t wish to live crammed in with countless others, to smother in the reek of endless fires.

Still, they had powers and knowledge I cannot imagine. They reached to the sky, they dreamed, even their failures scarred the earth for generations. I wonder what my ancestors were truly like. I crouch to study the figure the hunters found, tail outstretched for balance, but it is only a hairless monkey.



Read the explanation below only after you've thought about it, and really, really don't get it...



Oh, come on! Who do you think would take over the area around a city if everything fell apart. What creature does everyone associate with cities; the first to establish a symbiotic relationship with man without becoming domesticated? The city rat, of course!

And, yes, you guessed it, I'm not much of a city person. Forests, mountains, streams, oceans and meadows for me.