Short Story: The Flame

*NOTE: As usual folks, this is fiction. Not true. Thank you. Enjoy.

THE FLAME


As I sit on the floor with my legs crossed I stare intently at the flame burning on the end of the matchstick. I lower it to the candle sitting in front of me. As soon as the flame touches the wick, a new flame is born. I have created life! Ah, I wonder if this is how God felt while He was creating life. Creating the universe and everything must have been an immensely intense feeling. One I aspire to achieve.

I bring the matchstick back up to eye level and watch as it slowly burns out. A feeling of sadness overcomes me. I feel a kinship to the flame. It is all I have known. All I have understood. It has become like a parent to me. It is why I am who I am. All that I am is because of the flame.

I look around and see the fire licking at the curtains, slowly making its way up to the ceiling. My head slowly turns the other way to see furniture and paintings on the wall engulfed in flames. It was beautiful.

I remember the first time that I experienced the flame. My world mother killed my world father when I was very young. She claimed self-defense because he would get liquored up and slap her around. She was acquitted and soon began dating again.

She didn't seem to really take to being a mother. She didn't seem to have time for me. She'd leave me with the TV and go out to find someone to take her ex husband's place. I didn't really mind. I didn't care for her either.

One night she punished me for something that I don't remember. She tied me to the radiator and then left for her night out on the town. She left a cigarette burning in the bedroom, and the house went up in flames. By the time the fire truck got there and rescued me, I was unconscious from the smoke and burned badly all over my body.

When I woke up and saw myself in the mirror I didn't cry. I didn't say a word, I just stared. It was like something out of a comic book. Scars spread all over my face. I wasn't sure what to feel about it. I was more intrigued than anything else. I opened my mouth to speak and quickly shut it. My skin stretched when I did so. It hurt, but the doctor said I should slowly try to open my mouth a little at a time so I didn't do any damage.

My mother was found a couple days later in some low rent motel. She had been beaten and raped by some drifter who she had picked up at a bar. Or rather he had picked her up. Didn't matter. My world parents were dead and I had been reborn. Reborn to the flame.

So as I stare at the flames all around me I smile. It is all so beautiful. I have created all of this. I turn my head slightly as I hear a firetruck's alarms in the distance.

I feel at peace. I am finally ready. Ready to return to the flame, from which I was born.