Sounders vs. Colorado - Aftermatch Aftermath: The Ruin of Man

Following the 3-1 loss the Seattle Sounders suffered at the hands of Colorado Rapids, it's safe to say that the world is coming to an end. We had a good run, planet Earth. Thanks for the oxygen and water and stuff.

By Ethan Swenson Apr 25, 2016, 9:00am PDT

Our world has fallen into shadow, and most people in it died. The dead will not suffer the hardships of the terrible world that remains. Those born into this hell will have no remembrance of anything else. Those who survived, those of us who remain, those are the truly broken, for they know what was before.

We are such people, having lost over and over, and to this, we have lost our sanity. We now start on a never-ending journey away from the phantoms of our past. We stand at the precipice, and what remains - morality, justice, mercy - they don't exist anymore. Hope is dead, glory is lost, consumed by everything that surrounds us. Now these streets are paved toward nowhere.

This is our new world, and we forge it how we want, reality to take the shapes of our fears or of our hope. For it is the power of our minds, the power of our beliefs in a better world that will break through this darkened sky. Before this, we were taught it took a hero to change things. We have not got a hero; we got us.

The Seattle Sounders lost to the Colorado Rapids in the ugliest way, and this was all it took for us to lose our tenuous grasp on civility. Lawlessness dug in its claws, betrayal sprang from its roots. Brothers fought brother, bleeding the same blood on the same hallowed grounds.

Judge not a man when he is blessed with riches, bountiful and vast. Judge a man when those riches are gone, taken from his hands with no hope of an eventual return. His resolve then, at his lowest of lows, speaks to his true character.

Our fall, painful and harsh, may not yet be over. But why do we fall? Is it not so that we may learn how to pick ourselves up? Does the man who was born into a lifestyle of fabulous wealth understand poverty? Does that very same man appreciate the blessings bestowed upon himself? When at the top, the bottom is an afterthought, shrugged off as if it never existed. When at the bottom, the top is a fairy tale, an impossibility of a better world.

Having been at or near the top, how do we now measure ourselves? Can we get back what was lost, or do we hang our heads in shame, lamenting our misfortune, and tear ourselves apart from the inside? Life is a journey, full of hills and valleys, and though we stop to appreciate the views, the world never stops spinning, our legs never stop moving. Our landscape changes, and with it, so do we.

How we face this change defines us, how we adapt determines whether we rise or whether we fall. As individuals we undergo this transformation independently, but as a whole, we can change our fortunes. For we are stronger, side by side. Our voice, alone, can barely reach the din of chaos, but together our voice can swallow the thunderous cacophony. We live. We die. We live again.