Account of a Flame

Account of a Flame

I was borne unto the earth through the sky's most intimate bridge to the land. I can barely remember it as it was so quick and I was so young. I was so confused and in the shock of my landing that I burst outwards, reaching for something to ground myself upon. I consumed everything around me that I could, retching backwards from those areas I could not supplant myself upon. It was a bright and ugly introduction. As I grew I quickly multiplied, starved and while initially alone I quickly found myself among a family of my common kin. When the sky tried to squelch us out we recoiled but the battle gradually turned in our favor. We built a strong community from bright young flames and together we proudly flowed forth without regard for those others around us.

After some time, we found ourselves starving again and we became once more confused. The battles grew more and more playful but as time passed the attrition grew and we found fear once more. We choked and sputtered, clinging on to the last precious places. Our smoke had filled the sky but we were dying. Soon our community was broken into smaller and smaller pieces, further and further apart. The sky's once trifling attempts to stamp us out became more relevant, more dire was our case by each day passed. We knew this but we still caught on to anything and everything we could, licking the last pieces of earth for sustenance. But it was foolish, our time was waning.

In our course of life I had passed from one community to the other, cheering on my fellows, but had become stuck in one now that was on the verge of collapse. I had seen our fellows grow dimmer and dimmer, further and farther away. Eventually, I only saw the faintest glimmers of what we once were, and I was surrounded only by my closest neighbors. Smaller and smaller we huddled together. Then we became separated, lost, and alone, and though I could see the others around me they were all extinguished in turn.

Finally my time came and I tried to cry out once more but all I could manage was a feeble hiss as a single droplet splashed over me. I was gone.

I was shepherd to a great and powerful organization. Together we had wrested control from the skies; our creators. We had grown and flourished and thrived. But in our lust we became blinded by our own brightness. We were humbled by the very earth and sky we had triumphed over, and in our humbling we were picked apart piecemeal until I, the last who remained, was squelched from existence by a tiny droplet just like all the others we had shrugged off in our prime. Though I had roared to and with a grand crowd before, now all I could bear to utter was but a hiss and a handful of smoke.

In dying I was completed in that moment. I was struck out, as I had no more stay in the world. I had nothing more to take, and nothing to give. I was complete.