Destruction I: The First Drop

Five eyes watch the artist. He measures the side of the temple with his gaze and raises his brush. Trees are painted in viridian dappled with purple, acrylic paint on concrete. The newest eye is impressed, but the others believe the work is technically competent yet unoriginal.

One eye follows his face instead of his brush, showing his intensity and the paint speckles on his brow.

The eyes hear the shouts first. It takes a few minutes for the artist to notice.

He puts down his brush and walks to the sound, an eye following close behind. A crowd has gathered near the front of the temple. A woman sprays words, blood red: Death to the Holy Mothers. She paints drops falling from the words and pooling on the floor.

The eye views the crowd, but their expressions are guarded. Maybe they shout because they disapprove. Maybe they're frightened about what will happen if they don't.

One has betrayed her words. An enforcer pod's alarm whines in the distance.

The artist grabs the eye before the pod lands. They would never let an eye see and survive.

The eye listens instead. Footsteps come from the pod. The enforcers march in time and surround the woman. She calls to the crowd. She asks people to listen. To think.

The doors slide shut on the pod. No sounds escape the hull, but the eye has heard this before. The woman has closed and only her words remain.

The artist's grip tightens around the eye.

Destruction II: Along the Stream

Seven eyes watch the artist edit the vision. The first version shows only trees. The artist cuts the vision before the woman and sends it into the stream. It stops at the temple island, where his concept sketches and artist's bio are already planted.

The second version shows the woman. Her calls fill his studio, set to loop endlessly.

He shows an eye the works on his reader. All readers have the Book of the Holy Mothers, in its ten volumes and multiple translations.

He deletes the works, one Mother at a time.

Destruction III: Mother Creator

Nine eyes watch the mural. The central figure is the Mother Creator on her hover pad. Her body is rounded, topped with feathery tentacles. Each of her ten mouths smile at the trees below.

The artist paints her locomotion tentacles. Most hold onto the pad, but one reaches into the air. It is said the world sprung from this tentacle, but not by the eyes. The Mother has no eyes and no understanding. She didn't create eyes.

This hasn't been lost on the artist. He paints her in Payne's grey with antimony yellow edging, flat and dull against the world.

"It's only the first coat," he tells a temple attendant, who has come to be an eye for a few minutes.

Destruction IV: First Smoke

Ten eyes watch the artist burn his reader. The plastic won't burn without help, so he sets fire to his wooden chair first. The trees consume the reader. It fights back with smoke, oily black against plaster walls.

The artist chokes. He reaches to open a window and collapses.

One eye sends a call to medical services into the stream.

They're prompt. They give him clean air and sympathy. They're confused. The reader is a twisted blob, holes gaping like a Mother's mouth.

The medic asks, "Why'd you burn it?"

The artist shrugs. "It was broken."

Destruction V: The Smoke in the Trees

Thirty eyes watch the artist gluing the pages together. The glue barely holds. The pages would fall out if anyone read the book. It's not the artist's fault. No one's made a book from paper since before the Mothers.

He paints the title on the front: Book of the Holy Mothers, Abridged. There wasn't enough paper for all the volumes.

This time, he opens the window before he sets the fire. His caution is unnecessary. The only thing wood smoke wants is to find a new tree to hide inside. Books are made for burning.

Pages curl and blacken, until it's hard to tell the words from the burn. The eyes swirl around the flames, revelling in creation from destruction. The artist watches with his face stone, his eyes dim. Burning the book is not enough.

The eyes could have told him this, if only he knew to ask. But no one does and the eyes keep their visions to themselves.

Destruction VI: The Creation

One eye watches the artist. An enforcer pod enters the square. They're used to seeing the artist work late, but the eye still feels exposed. Perhaps today they will stop and catch the artist before he can return to the other eyes.

The pod travels past without slowing down. Its engines fade into the darkness and the artist begins. He paints a woman first, her eight arms spread over the Mother's bulk. He mixes her skin from chrome green oxide and cadmium red. Yellow ochre and burnt umber to lighten and darken, with a hint of cobalt blue in her shadows.

She's a fragment of times before the Mothers, of stories told in secret. The eye sees these visions in every blink and every close. There were days when eyes would watch and never think, but the days changed and the eyes opened.

Other images surround the woman: an arrow, a jar and a lotus blossom. The significance has been forgotten to all but the eyes, yet the artist sees their connections. They belong to the woman and the woman belongs to them.

He places a crimson spot on her forehead. The Mother sinks into the woman's shadow.