The exercise:
The word of the day is: pyromaniac.
I came upstairs for breakfast this morning to be greeted by a wonderful sight: there were workers in the vineyard next door, picking grapes. Soon, so soon, the bird guns will go quiet again.
I literally could have watched them all day. Unfor... fortunately there was work to be done in the garden, so I couldn't linger too long.
Then on my way out to the garden I saw a pheasant go running out of the peas and into the orchard. That is one big bird. I will do my best to hunt it down and get a picture of it.
Mine:
It had been a good summer: warm, dry, full of lazy days at the beach. Lots of forest fires.
He'd spent day after day watching the trees burn, in person when he could do so without being seen, on the TV news reports the rest of the time. The lightning strikes had been incredible, their power and beauty truly awe inspiring.
No one noticed the extra fires he felt compelled to start, and if they had there was no reason to question them. The wind must have carried a spark further than they'd expected, that's all.
But now fall had arrived and the days were growing colder, wetter. It was time to begin lighting the logs in the fireplace - a nice, safe, controlled environment to have his fun in. To tide him over until the big fires could be played with again, hidden within the natural ones brought on by nature.
I'm glad that you'll soon be free of the bird gun noise! And the pheasant sounds lovely too.
ReplyDeleteI like your prose, it reminds me of the forest fires around Athens a couple of years ago. That's not a great memory, but it is indicative of how evocative your writing is.
Pyromaniac
At the heart of the flame
Something dances,
A spirit of fire,
An elemental force,
That whispers seductively,
Asking to be set free.
It is too beautiful
To be pent up,
To be kept imprisoned;
Trapped against its will
Within the veil of flame.
And so I free it,
Unleash it, release it;
And watch as it sets light
To the whole world around me.
Everything's better on fire.
Man, this is reminding me that my PyroChick hasn't been in my head lately... I'll have to see if I can't think of something at some point relatively soon so as to continue They Will Not Break Me.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately nothing's coming to me at the moment, but maybe this'll get something going for the weekend in the writing sector...
Marc – I enjoyed reading what you wrote, it feels natural.
ReplyDeleteGreg – Incredible poem, how did you come up with that?
Mine:
When his mother gave birth to the younger daughter, she did not expect that she actually love to play with fire. The family of four led a peaceful life for almost a year in their new apartment. Until one day she discovered something strange with her daughter…
At the age of two, she had a little hobby of playing with matchsticks and if she got hold of a pack, it would be very difficult to separate them. She would play with it all day long in the backyard alone.
At first, her mum didn’t notice anything strange as her daughter seems to be quite obedient. When her mum asked her to do something, she usually replied with a big “yes” and with a big smile on her face. At that age, it would seem like she had an intelligence of a teenager. Her IQ is at a whopping score of 200. Knowing this fact, her mum just let her roam around freely and in hope to let that creativity grow exponentially.
Then her mum continues to monitor her situation. Finally she decided to try to convince a few prestigious universities to take her into consideration. But then none of them were willing to even witness that talent she has. And so after some time, she decided to give up.
When her daughter is at the age of three, her love for playing with fire is almost at the level of pyromaniac. Nothing seems to get into her head even with harsh warning that it has a chance to burn everything into ashes.
Nothing could ever stop her and she really became an addict even after that childhood.
They never could resist a candle -- a bit of napkin, touched to the flame, provided too much of a thrill. I always felt a little sorry for them, these intelligent people stuck halfway between childhood and adulthood, too clever for simple pleasures, too quick to take offense for the workaday world.
ReplyDeleteWhat's a pyromaniac you ask? Me. Well, I'm not the only one, but I'm one of them.
ReplyDeleteSee, I really like to watch things burn. Not in the twisted inflicter of mayhem sort of way, but in the perfectly natural "let's have a bonfire on the beach" sort of way. Savvy? Some of my very best memories have been created at such times, fireside and oceanside.
That said, I may or may not have been involved in an, how should I say it, incident involving fire. Quite a bit of fire. Long story short, the school should have had the fore-sight to not use the kitchens as an emergency storage room when the gym roof collapsed (not my fault). Apparently the vinyl coverings on those mats are quite flammable, especially when stacked atop stove elements.
So really, not all my fault. There were accomplices, too. I also plead temporary insanity due to the fact that I was in grade two and on a sugar rush. The cookies should also not have been kept in those kitchens that night.
Now would probably be as good a time as ever to stop, lest I look more pyromanic (yes, I just made that word up) than I truly am.
Greg - love the poem, particularly the final stanza. Though I would have been tempted to have the final line on its own.
ReplyDeleteg2 - I patiently await your inspiration on T'Will Not :)
Zhongming - great job with that story, it felt very real to me.
Morganna - nicely done, a bit of a different angle on things. Always appreciated :)
Jack - pyromanic is a most excellent word. Also, when cookies are involved, whatever goes wrong is almost always the fault of the cookies.