fawkes

I sat on the hammock with both my legs on the ground, not trusting it to carry my weight. It looked sturdy enough but I've fallen before. I learn my lessons well. The world was slowly losing light as I watched the birds overhead, busy flying about without any care, and I wondered, what it would feel like to have that kind of limitless freedom. I tried to imagine myself with wings, my feathers all ruffly and out of place from flying too far, too fast, and too carelessly.

My aunt was busy sweeping the yard, collecting leaves, twigs, and weeds. Trees shed. It's not just dogs, you know. I watched her collect everything and piled them into a pit in the backyard. She lit them up and burned them, right under the flowering mango tree. It's an old practice, where I am from, to "smoke" fruit-bearing trees. It keeps the insects from destroying the flowers that will soon produce the sweetest mangoes in the whole world. The kind of mangoes that just melts in your mouth. It's THAT good. Seriously.

I felt the heat as the flames engulfed everything that was thrown into the pit. It was beautiful, how it licked the leaves very slowly, almost passionately. Like whispers in the night between lovers huddled under the covers. It was as soft as butterfly kisses on the neck. But it was deadly. It consumed everything within its grasp and turned it into nothing. The flaming embers beneath it were the only remnants of its existence. The flames danced with a fervor that only intensified the already humid weather. I could feel the heat from where I was watching it peacefully swinging on the hammock.

I watched the fire slowly die after it has consumed everything in the pit. There was nothing left for it to feed from and the flames died out and it took with it the heat and the light. I looked around and I realised that I hadn't noticed the evening has crept upon me unaware.

I found myself thinking about you. Not surprising. Maybe our love was like the fire. It was all consuming, passionate, the flames dancing as we both fueled it. And then you stopped. It was just me feeding it, but I couldn't keep the fire from burning out because I had nothing left to feed it. In my desperation I jumped into the pit thinking that perhaps I could keep it burning, but it did nothing to keep the flames from dying out. And before I knew it, there was nothing left of me but embers of my skin, a remnant of what I used to be. And you were nowhere to be found.

There I was. All burned up. And you? I don't even know where you are right now. I just hope the smoke from our flames end up producing the sweetest fruit we have yet to taste.