The Life and Death of Several Fires

The first flame sang out, raged. The first flame was alone in hollow space, sucking air from the lungs of the empty, lost inside a void. And captured in that space, there was, for a time, a burning like none other. But as with all things so entombed, the first flame eventually died, its air burned out, its brilliance smothered by time and cloying emptiness, and only the void remained, and the memory of the flame.

The second flame burned long and bright. Like a winters hearth, or a forest ablaze from lightning’s footsteps. The second fire bloomed like an evening flower against the darkness, and inside of the blossom, nestled like an ember, sat a silence, still and golden, undisturbed by the conflagration. The second fire was slow in dying, but, as with all things so emblazed, it too slipped into smoke and was lost. Only the scent remained to tell of all that had burned. And, of course, the ashes.

The third fire, the last fire, was as unto the dying of a star. Fragments rained outwards in a halo of flame: a wreath to hang on endings. The third fire left nothing in its wake. It was blown from charred lips and fed on paper hands, folded in prayer. And as with all things so affected, the third flame melted from existence, its memory only a waking dream to sleepless souls.


All three flames burned for a time. Of that we can be certain. And all three flames died, for all flames are fleeting, abrupt by nature, like lives. Even suns are brief winks of light against a shadowed veil, behind which lies, perhaps, some secret truth or revelation.
The flames in question, not suns, burned their brightest only briefly, and vanished to the ether. Neither deeds nor words could resurrect those flames, even were they offered, which they were not. And so their endings came, unprotested, though, perhaps, not unnoticed.
And silence marked their passing.