This Is The Story Of Where The Water Went While All The World Waited (Part Two)
You may not realise this, but all of you came from embers. There used to be a terrible fire in here, you see. A fire larger and hotter than you’ve ever seen. There used to be a fire in here because, before even the fire, there used to be a lot of things, large and small, that would burn very easily if they were ever in the same place, at the same time, as even the smallest spark. All of these things had done a very thorough job at hiding all of the flames and all of the sparks away in very safe places, and all of these things, the large things and the smaller things, prayed very hard that the sparks and the flames would never emerge. At the same time they secretly feared the emergence of the sparks and flames. They had done such a good job at hiding them that they could no longer even find them themselves. And so they might be anywhere, the large things and the small things thought. Some of the things, among themselves, even got to thinking that another one of their number might have kept some of the sparks. Even one of the sparks. Just one. They kept close together, these burnable things, you see. They even loved one another very much. So some of them thought, and never spoke any of this aloud, that others of their number might have hidden one of the sparks inside one of their own pockets, thinking that this was a very clever hiding place, right under their own noses as it were. And it wasn’t that some of these more fearful or suspicious ones even considered for a moment that an equally burnable thing, larger or smaller, might have held a spark in reserve in order to settle an old quarrel (yes there were even these, friends - quarrels, sometimes, though quiet ones), it was more that they understood, in their terror, that terrible things happen. They understood deep inside, perhaps sometimes without even realising it, that sometimes all it takes is one thing placed beside another thing in order for disaster to strike. And so it was that one of the smaller in size out of all of the things, one that most of the others, in fact, could barely even see, for, indeed, it was nigh on the smallest of their number, grew very large in its fright. It shook in fact. It trembled in a blur of its anticipation. Something was going to happen. Sometime. Something very bright and very hot, and something with a great hunger driving it. Sometime. And once, for a moment, some thing larger might have felt it, like the buzzing wing of a fly brushing the flank of some great beast, and inside the one touched, there might have passed a brief moment of puzzlement. As if the thing touched, who, due to the sheer scale involved, could not even register the very impact of the touch, still was jostled by the act of memory recording the incident, somewhere deep in the mind where all things are known forever, and was made to consider through the contagious force of fear exactly what might happen if the very nightmare of the fly that had brushed its gargantuan flank ever came to pass. For nightmares vary very little across the spectrum. It is always a thing feared, even a little, that can set the very firmest feet to shaking. And there was not one among the burnable things that did not have something to fear. O yea of the driest timbers, yor sap long dry, who, in my eyes, might as well be dead, passed away from my world, our perceptions now misaligned as though the very heart had been removed twain your artery and my vein, does your shadow remaining upon this earth (the stillflowing artery long dead, now flowing nothing) tremble to its roots when thinkest ye yor dustgone leaves might drift through dancing flames? So it was that ears until then deaf were made to focus through the Great Equaliser of fear. And all in a row the drums lined up, taking their cues from the drumbeats that strengthened in volume and in force as more and more and tauter and tauter responsive drumsurfaces aligned beneath the thumping force of concern, every beat by every beat emphasising greater and greater vigilance and warning. All mouths closed. All eyes wide. All steps halted in midstride. Every particle of every bouncing and thrumming hide anticipatory of every falling pounding thought turned quicker than the one just before that, falling faster and with greater worry, stoked by every thought with just less worry falling before it, that called it forth, but with more quickly growing panic than the thought falling even before that. All those things. All those things turning their lenses of concentration toward the amassing concern over the terror of nightmare, the nightmare itself the fear of a fear, a distilled effluvia of horror rising from the thought of the horrifying thing. Staring at it. Marvelling at it. A casual curiosity diverting for a moment minds mostly filled with the cogs and gears of preparation for all of the tasks ever flowing in, morphing with a flicker of an eyelid, mutating with a tremor in a cheek, becoming what it observes, becoming even more observable mass for even more observing eyes. All of the things together now, working in the spastic unison of hysteria, all the work put into all the plans (the reasonable plans, the plans that worked, that snuffed out all sparks, that slew all dragons, that made every thing safe for all eternity if only they could make themselves realise it) forgotten now, as a roof is forgotten so long as it keeps the rain hidden. All of the things together now, thinking one thing, stretched towards one thing, reaching for one thing, unknowing, unable to help themselves because they can only see the thing they reach for (the thing they reach for now in desperate fear of the very thing they reach for) and not all the rest of it, the rest of themselves, what used to be all of themselves, all of it still bent in the old directions, the directions away from it, the directions that built the walls and dug and filled the holes between the very sewn fabric of the concealing pocket, the glowing sack that must contain the cure. The fingers, openly shaking now, grasp at the drawstrings of the sack, fumbling desperately with the knots that these fingers themselves tied not so long ago, knots tied in a time of quiet when reasonable plans were put into effect in a calm and responsible manner, knots now torn at, the looped and tightened strings scratched frantically, shouting voices all around, urging the hands on but only increasing their quaking, wailing voices crying out of control with wild heaving muscles behind them, blind eyes rolling back into sockets as the noise and the flurry keens up and up into drumsplitting decibels, the beat forgotten, the terror now every thing, every crush and press in a sweltering and violent place, every body frantic for something close at hand, every hand reaching for it, every knot loosening, every string untying, straightening, all bags opening, all hidden things laid bare, every dry and burnable thing pressed close in and thrashing against every hidden place and every delicate secret thing. You may not realise this, but there once was a terrible fire in here. All of you used to be embers.