They sat motionless on the sofa in their small, expensive apartment. Unable to tear themselves away from the TV screen and the destruction they witnessed, unconsciously their hands found one another. Their fingers gripped together tightly, finding within each other the anchor they so desperately needed to survive this much changed and turbulent world.
Religion was dead. Christianity had fallen. Fallen from such a height that when it reached the ground, it shattered into nothing more than dust. It was damaged beyond repair.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8IPgGEwm3n
The mobs had attacked Vatican city; the Pope was assassinated. The doors to St Peter’s basilica were thrown open violently. The marble columns were hacked to pieces; the tomb of Saint Peter was desecrated.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIVxY8vB6TP
That night, the faithful wept. Their tears could have created a second flood, but there would be no Noah and no Arc to save faith this time. Faith was dead; Faith would not be resurrected like Christ. Faith had abandoned them.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5u8QQim0k9
The sun rose on the second day and the violence had reached the galleries. In France, Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks was removed from its gilded frame and torn to pieces. In Rome, the Sistine Chapel was burnt to the ground; Michelangelo’s three hundred towering figures that once graced the ceiling lay in ashes. In Florence, Vasari’s Last Judgement was attacked with knives and matches. Worldwide, the angry and the discontented were removing all trace of religion. Renaissance art was brutally destroyed. Bibles were burned and churches ransacked. The Turin Shroud was stamped into the dust. The Papal archives were burned, and all historians mourned the loss as though mourning a close relative. This was no longer an attack on religion, it was an attack on knowledge.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKSCHML7cJU
“It’s like Alexandria all over again.” He whispered. She knew not how to console him. His world had been shaken. Though not a religious man, his entire life revolved around religious study. His work of ten years had, in the space of forty-eight hours, become redundant.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkEP3hTvFls
“How the master’s would have despaired, to see their work so unceremoniously destroyed.” She said quietly. Her heart was breaking. She too was no follower of religion - but she was an art historian. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Vasari… no trace of them lingered in this secular world.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSJRL8vVqMj
The leaders of the revolt preached rationalism. They promised that the Earth would see a new dawn; a golden age. Christianity had held them back. They had been in the dark ages and now the blindfold had been removed. The couple had barely the energy to leave their flat. Their jobs had become meaningless. As a research historian that devoted his life to religious research and an art historian, they no longer had any place in the world. They were stunned into silence. Every night they would watch the news in quiet fear as more monuments were destroyed, as more history was desecrated.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdjwPtuiZ7H
The mob soon moved on from Christianity. They began to attack Islam, Judaism, Buddhism. Muslim temples in Jerusalem were pulled down, the Wailing Wall was hit with the bulldozers and the Torah joined the bibles in the piles of books waiting for the incinerators.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6sNTJUvbEj
And then the attack began on ancient religions. The Parthenon in Greece, already unstable, needed only the smallest push to send it toppling over the hill it rested on. Tombs in Egypt were whitewashed, erasing away all imagery of Isis and Horus, of Anubis and Amun. The Gods that adorned the Trevi Fountain in Rome were vandalised. History was erased.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡspCffEYO8w
The couple resolved to rarely leave their home. Their summer vacations to Athens and Florence were cancelled; nothing remained that was worth visiting. The new world order had arrived, and the world was waking to find that it was not what they had asked for. Faith that had bound people together now separated them. Faith that had given people hope now gave them only disappointment. Those in the pursuit of knowledge now had little left to pursue.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYpSnTgA5Zt
“It is a cultural holocaust.” He said one evening. She nodded rather numbly, unable to reply. Her mind drifted back to long summers spent travelling Europe. Majestic cathedrals in Prague and Vienna, basilicas in Venice and Rome - and not a single one remained. She had lost faith in humanity, just as humanity had lost faith in God.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5HQPdA0Shr
Their lives were changed completely. All of their work and all of their study was now meaningless. There was no more Renaissance art for her to admire and analyse. There was no more Vatican Archives for him to explore. They found themselves clinging to each other in misery and hopelessness, at a loss of what to do with themselves. And yet the couple were the ones who were perhaps the least affected. Monks and Nuns were forced into the streets. Elderly men and women with no material possessions and no understanding of worldly greed; forced to live on the streets as they were too old or too disheartened to work. Their lives lay in tatters around their feet, the crosses around their necks snatched from them and tossed into the fire.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFgVJL66YXI
It soon proved that the revolutionaries had not thought their plan through all too much. Tourism fell to record lows. No longer was there anything left worth visiting. Italy took the hit the hardest. It’s cities cleaned of religious influence, there no longer remained any fountains, any statues, any ancient churches or fortifications. Saint Peter’s Square was nothing more than a black stain on the landscape, with nothing left to offer the millions that visited each year. The Louvre in Paris, although the building remained intact, was stripped of the majority of its precious artworks. The number of tourists and visitors the world over plummeted. The world economy suffered. Countries no longer had much to offer tourists in the wake of the revolution, and even those that remained unscathed could offer them at best only a beach and a sun bed.633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi1Ab3kbnOS
The world fell into chaos. Almost all of the most famous artworks had been destroyed. Iconic buildings lay in ashes. The pope lay in a shallow grave with no headstone. This was the last judgement, and it was faith that was being sent down.
The couple were forced to find a new way of life. New vocations and new passions were required of them. Religion truly was dead, and with it, the history and culture of thousands of years. Religion had been snuffed out like a candle, and the smoke it left behind was suffocating. An apocalyptic revolution had taken place, abolishing faith and hope. As the population of the world began to rebuild in the aftermath, many began to realise that a world without religion was just as persecutory, just as cruel, just as selfish and just as warlike as the one they had left behind and that, they realised, was the real sorrow. As the ashes settled and the smoke rose towards the sky, the couple believed that God, if he existed, would be weeping for his sons and daughters that had strayed so far from the path he had laid out for them, that they were willing to destroy their entire legacy to spite him - and they would receive nothing in return but sadness and despair.
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a/n - Alexandria is in reference to the destruction of the library at Alexandria. Also, note that although I am not religious in the slightest, i do think religion is a key and extremely important factor in our society and I do not think we would do well without it, although some may believe differently. (Also please note that I refrained from giving the characters names in order to symbolise their position as being meaningless and almost invisible in this new world that they do not belong in.)633Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdHzhOD2nXG
