10 Lines - 'Golden Age...'

 

Looking back, we all realized it had been a golden age :
 

As we had moved southward into those wide open plains, it was clear the animals had never seen a human hunter before, the large game falling to our spears so easily we could choose only the best cuts of meat.
 

The floods came so predictably every spring, our new crops harvested to surplus every year, allowing some to not even farm at all, learning instead to shape clay and metals beyond merely functional, into intricate art works.
 

Copper begat bronze which begat iron, as our leaders became kings, organizing the building of stone monuments to rival the works of the gods themselves.
 

Our roads spanned the landscape, with our iron clad Legions enforcing the Pax of Empire and allowing ease of communication, trade and travel for our Citizens.
 

Using our water powered mills we built stout ships while we looked to the sun and stars, braving with confidence the open ocean to spread our rule using Guns, Germs and Steel over what we now knew was a sphere.
 

The universe itself became a clockwork toy, our mechanisms breaking forever our bondage to the land, crowding us into cities, into factories, while the chosen few lived a life of ease.
 

First through steam, and the power of electricity, our machines drove Empires on which the sun never set, allowing the Educated Gentlemen to explore and catalogue and ponder.
 

Dreams shown on flickering screens drove aspirations of material wealth beyond the wildest imaginings of even a generation before, while education and medicine became the norm as the ‘have nots’ strove to become just as wealthy as the ‘haves’.
 

We broke beyond the bounds of the Earth itself, watching on tiny screens, each holding more information than had even existed in our parent’s youth, while fully expecting stores stocked high with cheap goods from all corners of the globe and foods wildly beyond natural seasons or limits of geography.