Friday, October 9th 2009

"He felt it in his eyes. The orange flame stood dancing, just dancing in those deep, dark pupils as he gazed upon the fireplace. The crackling seemed deafening in the silence of his home. It was not always this silent. During the warmer months, one could hear the constant sloshing of water against the wooden stilts below, rhythmic, almost soothing, but once a year, inevitably, a thick sheet of ice would cover the lake, masking all sights and sounds of what lay beneath.

He heaved a sigh, his chest rising and falling with the current of air that rushed into his body and left the same way. "All that work," he thought, as the crackling grew more intense, "all those years, wasted," and he threw another one of his diaries into the mad, roaring fire.

The fire started to pop now, as if enraged by what it was forced to destroy. First, the pages started to singe, then suddenly all at once, like a streak of insanity, the fire gobbled the contents of the diary until there was nothing left but an empty hard leather shell.

A tickle. Was it in his throat? No, coughing did not help. Another tickle. It was coming from the depths of his body, his being, and finally he let it out in peals of frenzied laughter. His throaty, hoarse voice cut through the chilly air for miles around, and in the midst of the short pauses he took to breathe, he heard the icicles plunging into the wooden floorboards outside.

It left him breathless, clutching to the armrests of his chair. All the vitality of his youth grew weaker and weaker with the fire. The poet, the romantic, the adventurer all submitted to the beckoning of the dying flame.

Then, with the last breath, he blew the embers onto the curtains nearby. They quickly ignited, bringing the fire back to life. Had there been anybody around, one could have seen the grey smoke clouding the night sky, blocking out the moon, as the surface of the ice melted, allowing the last remnants of the lonely house to pass through.
A lonely house, owned by a lonely man the would never knew."

30th September 2009