#FridayFlash - Fire - Part of a Thriller

There is this all-consuming fire,

that births itself from a desire.

Who can deny the beauty of such a flame?

-          One that spurts from the mention of a name.

It’s ever changing orange and silent blues

Creep up through the darkness in silent hues

They are known to enchant one’s sole with sadness

-          For some maybe a relief, a sense of gladness.

What is to remain?

Of all hearts that burn in vain?

What is to become

Of those silent ones?

People have been taught that love comes in many a form.

Addiction, a figure or maybe a silent smile

A gesture, memory or even …

Fire.

Author - Nadine Maritz 

A timid girl sat within the confined walls of a shabby, three-bedroom house situated on a hill in a busy Johannesburg. She was sitting on a faded black couch. The wind blew shards of rain through the yellow stained curtains. Her blond faded hair surrounded her pale face. She didn’t seem to feel the rain spatter, instead she seemed caught up in thought. Snare recalled having heard someone mention that in a near-death situation she had thought that death was easy, silent and comfortable – life was more difficult. After having gone through these encounters herself, she feverishly had to object.

It hurt - the whole transformation. Her endless search and infatuation with vampires and mythical creatures had brought her to a stage in life where she had discovered that it was true – that the majority of mythical historical stories had a truth to them. Yes, she had made a study of these mythical creatures. She had written so many stories. She had been caught up in so many fantasies. And now, she seemed to understand.

Every time she thought back, her grandmother’s voice rang in her ears: “Waar daar ’n rookie is, is daar definitief ’n vuurtjie.” Where there is a little smoke, there is definitely a little fire.

Stories weren’t just told. They originated from something; whether they were passed on from generation to generation or developed from an idea. All stories had sparked from something; someone had precipitated the experience.

The bottom line?

Stories were a human creation. The only way one would know for sure was by living them. The only thing left for her was to focus on what she planned to do since she became un-dead.

She recalled her sense of humour at the time. The question: Good bat or bad bat? Remained a wicked yet promising thought.

She never wanted to be bad. Naughty, yes, but bad was never been part of her nature.       The end of her first life--her human life--had comeeventually after exceptional bouts of pain. Her family had been erased in a car crash.

After six months of intensive care, having gone through operation after operation of skin grafts, a kidney transplant, hair removal, implants and drainage she was released back into the big wide world. A big joke, she had thought as she had sat infront of her bedroom mirror. Her mother had combed her hair. Her father had left her tea. She was going through the ropes of being pretty and for whom--for what?

Walking out into the open air on that day didn’t make her life any easier, it just made her aware of the fact that she didn’t want to live anymore.

Nightmares had haunted her into hellish pits as she woke up screaming. They always seemed to be the same. She would be trying to occupy the kids with merry little songs. Vader Jakob - to be exact. The crazy ass song would play repeatedly within her restricted dreams.

Loud screeches would interrupt the song as she would utter the part stating, “Slaap jy nog?” The kids would scream and, as she would look back, the car would be in the air.

Then darkness.

Her hands would search for something familiar-- his skin. She would hear her own whispered words, “I love you forever”. And then she would wake up. She would be surrounded by silence.

An empty house - a lonely bed.

In her current state, these memories seemed like a far-fetched dream - another time; someone else’s life.  

Snare recalled that while she had been going through the transformation, she wanted to rather believe in the existence of eternal soul mates and reincarnation. At least then, she would have known that with her husband; her family, it was never goodbye but always until we meet again...

If she had died, she would have been on her way to meet them but, instead, her mythical obsession had landed her in the pits of the unknown; it had led her to this.

And this for her...was not a coming back, but rather a staying on.

Her life changed before her twenty-fifth birthday. Something that mattered. It had been something that continued to matter to her as she was left with her dead life to live into eternity.

After she had arrived at her empty house; surrounded by the full life she had once lived, she had been consumed with dread. The happy home, which was once filled with laughter, was filled with silence. The house that she had grown tired of cleaning now collected dust as none of its internal forms changed. It was as if it had died with them and she was then left with a shell.  She had stayed at home for days - not eating, drinking, going out or working, maybe sometimes not even breathing--a speck of dust on a planet waiting for the end to come to join the rest of her family. She was hoping that she could die of what many people called a broken heart.

Either way, release never came. Her pain stretched into what seemed was eternity. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months ticked by and still...there was nothing. Death never came. She had sat on her couch next to the familiar window with dust specks building up around her. Sun rises passed; nightfall came and outside nothing much changed. Summer turned to autumn, autumn to spring, spring to winter and, as if there was no relief the circle started again. Nothing; no one could save her from herself--her own creation--her personal hell. The only reminder of life at the time was that of a thumping broken heart.

Her heart.

The sounds seemed ironic since it was the one sound she hated with her entire being--the organ that indicated life.