Hearts on fire
Photo by Maciej Karoń on Unsplash
Another timed write from 2021 or 2022. I think the prompt was a surreal Tom Chambers photograph of a little girl trying to ignite a fire using a stick. Except the bottom of the stick was positioned over a little boy’s heart.
Oh man, oh man. Trust me, I’ve seen this so many times throughout the millennia, it’s about as exciting as watching a squirrel looking for nuts. It’s about as exciting as a golf game. Or a tech conference. Give me an eye exam any day.
This? Or that? Do you like this image? Or is this one clearer? Or is that one clearer? The test that doesn’t get you a grade. Of course, my eyes are past examination. They’ve been perfect since before the inventor of eyeglasses, before optometry, before “an eye for an eye” almost.
Though that’s what got me in trouble in the first place. Just like the girl in the photo. Some old dude took my little brother. Just like the boy in the photo. I didn’t make a fire with sticks drilled into his dead heart. Instead, I let him lie, cold and quiet, the blood drained away. I went to get my vengeance, my eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I hadn’t counted on the old dude’s teeth. I didn’t know I could set fire to his big chateau built from ancient dried wood, and watch it go up in flames like arterial blood spraying a wall. I certainly didn’t know he’d walk out of those flames and sink his fangs into me.
And, now, here we are, 600 years on. Fred and me. Still hanging out. Watching some mortal trying to get a spark going, trying to reclaim the dead. That’s commonplace. But even more ubiquitous are all the people into whose pockets I can peer to see the sticks they carry. The little bits of accelerant they favor.
They stake out a heart they wish to ignite. Go to work. Rubbing, muscles exhausted, praying, hoping, wishing. Wishing for the love in another’s heart to burst out in flame or blood and wash over them. Wash them with that — what do you call it? — so long I’ve forgotten. Those other names. The other names for something from the heart.
