the descent

995 word
for writer cramp contest prompt about trouble resulting from a good deed...

I gazed upwards while sprawled across the great floor of my tower. "It IS ivory, just so you know." I told the beetle that crawled the four walls. "Every bit. It's imported. I call it my ivory tower." He was impressed. I could tell by the way he moved his antennae. I know things like this because I have an interest for these things. But to most people, let's just say these great and noble thoughts are never found within their commonplace skulls.

I cast my gaze out of my crystal window and down upon the world. Such a pity. I sighed. So self-important, so deluded, those people. Each one thinks their own weight is a universe, yet each serving only the function of a worker in an ant colony. So much less than my friend here, the beetle. The beetle dares to be an individual.

A tingling ran through my insides as I mentally marked off another day on my great calendar. Time again.

Today, as every year on this day, I bestow a gift upon humanity. I descend to where commoners dwell. I breathe their foul air in order that I might pluck up one of them. The fortunate one ascends with me to inhale the rarefied aether of my realm. I teach them what freedom truly means. Once they realize the true heights that man might attain, I release them once again unto the world so they might instruct the others on how to climb to such dizzying altitudes.

I wrapped a scarf tightly about my neck to protect it from the chill common air and I bid adieu for the meanwhile to my estate, my utopia.

Hours later I had been bruised several times from brutish passers-by who had refused to step aside as I approached. The stink of the common world had already started dizzying me. My soul had enough and cried out, so I exited the unforgiving boulevard and stepped into a diner to rest my world-wearied head. A woman of the servant caste approached. A pin affixed to her pink pastel servant garment announced her name as "Meg". I had found the one I will rescue.

"Whatcha want, hon?" she garbled. I could scant understand the words cast off her uneducated tongue.

"Today I do mankind a favor." I answered.

"Okay hon. You want something to eat before you get to that?" she responded.

I threw back my head and laughed. Always thinking of her duty to eatery and empire; a slave through and through. She was so deluded she probably thought herself free. She would be my greatest challenge yet.

"Come with me. I will set you free from your worldly bonds. I can make you like ME." I proposed. Unaccustomed to such magnanimity, she retreated from the offer. "I will take you and then you and I will together touch the hand of God." The sheer weight of my offer had obviously stricken her.

"Lemme...lemme get my manager." she said.

This one would be tough. Her masters had power over her even when they were not in sight. Though I was always loath to do so, sometimes I had to apply force for the best interest of those I would help. My shoulders and back, strong from a life of contemplation, were ever ready to aid me in rescuing humanity from itself.

"You will not enjoy this, but you must endure it so that you can become so much more." I said. I bolted upright and planted my superhuman shoulder into her girth. Though she was three or four times a woman I would have no trouble supporting her on my agile frame.

"Help! Get off me you crazy jerk. HELP!" she squealed.

Like Atlas I supported the weight of the world, and this world was named Meg. As I moved to straighten myself and lift her onto my shoulder I felt a pain in my back. It felt as if Achilles himself had thrust his spear into my spine. Although I continued to struggle valiantly with my young charge, I knew in my noble heart that any future motions were in vain. In headlong pursuit of my lofty goal, I failed to realize that the air of the common world had polluted my essence and sapped my strength. Such is the price for self-sacrificing heroism.

But alas! All was not yet lost. Several guardmen burst through the door. "Sirs!" I exclaimed. "I beckon you. Hoist her up and take her to my tower. Today begins the first day of her new life."

I had scarcely spent my words the guardsmen lifted their terror devices. The oafs obviously had no idea how to aim such weaponry because they shot me instead! Metal bearings, guided my twine, traversed the room in an instant and stuck fast to my skin. Before I could even chastise the dolts a rod of lightning exploded across the wire and electrified my entire body. Hardly could I fathom that such men were entrusted with punishments only fit to be doled out by the Gods!

Blackest pits of hell! It was too late. I had fallen into a well designed trap. As the oafs applied shackles to my mighty wrists, I nobly vowed to the wretched, duplicitous servant girl that all was forgiven. Forgiven, but not forgotten. For when I returned to aid a member of mankind in escaping the shackles of the common world, I would not choose her.

As I lay on the polluted floor I heard a familiar voice amongst the throng. "Yes. Yes, he escaped. He's mostly harmless, but he must have been off his meds. Of course, after he's processed we'll have several interns pick him up at your precinct."

Yes, these commoners may have won a small victory, but the members of my halcyon kingdom do not forget one of their own. After I re-ascend to my people and my strength is restored, I'll be back.