The Wires Beneath

The wires had been buried long ago, when the world was different. They ran under fields and roads, beneath houses and rivers, a vast web of copper veins spreading out across the land. Once, they had carried voices and dreams, the lifeblood of a connected world. But now, they were forgotten.

The men who had laid them down were gone, their names worn away like the numbers on old maps. The people who once relied on them had moved on, their voices carried by something lighter, something that did not need the weight of metal to travel. And so the copper lay in the dark, slowly being consumed by the earth it had once defied.

It was late autumn, the trees barren, the air sharp with the smell of decay. A man stood by the side of an old road, staring at the ground as if it might speak to him. His name was lost too, just another echo swallowed by the silence that had taken hold of the world.

He had come here because he had no other place to go. The world had turned cold, and the things people once counted on had turned cold with it. The power grids had flickered and died, the new machines that had promised so much now silent as tombstones. And so he stood there, on the edge of the world that had once been alive with light and sound, listening for something that was no longer there.

The ground beneath him was hard and dry, cracked like old bones. He knew the copper was down there, buried deep where the earth still held its secrets. But he also knew what time and neglect had done to it. The copper was still there, but it was no longer the copper that men had placed in the ground. It was something else now, something green and brittle, something that had forgotten its purpose.

He dropped to his knees, pressing his ear to the dirt, listening for the hum that had once been so familiar. But there was nothing. Only silence, deep and unbroken. He dug his fingers into the soil, scraping at the earth like a man desperate for water in a dry land. The dirt gave way grudgingly, revealing the twisted remains of the wire beneath.

It was there, as he knew it would be. But it was not what it had once been. The copper was dull and green, covered in the tarnish of years, the oxidation creeping through it like a disease. He knew that if he were to try and connect it, to bring it back to life, it would shatter in his hands. The copper was dead, the connection broken beyond repair.

He sat back on his heels, staring at the earth that had swallowed the world he once knew. The copper veins were nothing more than relics now, skeletons of a past that no longer mattered. And yet, they were all that was left. The man knew he was alone, but in the silence that surrounded him, he felt the weight of all those who had once depended on the copper, who had trusted it to carry their voices, their lives.

He wondered how long it would take for the earth to finish its work, to turn the copper to dust and swallow it completely. He wondered if anyone would be left to care when it finally happened. The thought came to him then, slow and heavy, that perhaps the copper was a warning, a reminder that nothing lasts forever, that even the strongest connections will one day break.

The man rose slowly, his knees cracking in the cold air. He took one last look at the ground, at the dead copper buried beneath it. Then he turned and walked away, leaving the wires to their slow death. The earth would take them, as it had taken everything else. And the world would move on, forgetting that they had ever been there at all.