Beginner's Endings

A young man mourns his broken heart.

Beginner's Endings

Darren read somewhere that fire was respected, even revered, in some Asian cultures. Fire was the devourer and the purifier. It could consume anything. Before its terrific power forests and their denizens fell, and the path of the fire was clean.

 

Darren hoped the mouth of the gods would accept this little burnt offering of his and that he would be purified by his ritual. His romantic heart bled like an open wound. Memories flowed through him like hot blood. This all was beyond his experience.

 

The dark hid most of the big living room save for the patch of light from the fire. The fire's light danced as the flames chased each other over the logs. Darren sat on the hearth of the fireplace with a shoebox cradled in his arm. His face was lit in orange tone and hidden in shadows by firelight. He was alone in the house save for the cat, the fire, and his memories.

Darren stirred the coals and made the flames leap up. Heat washed over Darren but he still felt cold. He wanted the fire to be very hot, very hungry.  The cat complained about the sparks.

Darren studied the orange flames like tongues and the red hot coals below. The fire seemed to him to be a living thing. Already it ate away at new log he provided for it. He was transfixed. After awhile he moved a bit as the heat grew uncomfortable for him. The heat still could not warm his heart.  He sighed and began to tell his story to the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT DARREN TOLD THE FIRE:

 

"Fire, you have witnessed many happy evenings between me and my love. You have shared our intamacy and provided us happiness. Now, she is gone. I am unable to see what I did that brought me this unhappiness. I am miserable -- stuck with my loss. Please bring me solace and erase my memories.

If I had known it was this hard to fall out of Love I would have never fallen into it. I've known her a year and she just leaves. My friends are still happy using 'romance' as a cover for some night’s entertainment. They still go from night to night and girl to girl without missing a beat. They used to laugh at me when I told them I was in love, and I used to laugh back at them and their stupidity. Now, I feel true pain. Part of me has left and I am not the same.  I don't know what to do; inside I'm dead. To live I must forget."

 

Darren gazed deeper into the fire and searched the flames for a reply.

>Snap< >hiss< >crackle< the fire said:

 

THE FIRE'S REPLY

 

"I am FIRE and I have seen you with your love many times just as I have seen many lovers before you. I can burn but I cannot make one forget. Yours is not the first heart to break; neither are you the first to come to me. I will devour all that you give me but no more."

 

THE CAT'S MESSAGE

 

"Come, come Strange-brother. This fit of melancholy doesn't suit you. You are depressing me. Sure, SHE's gone, but that’s her problem. Simply, find another one. There are many. Cat's do not worry so.

 

DARREN TO THE CAT

 

"Simon your heart must be as black as your fur. You cats do not love as humans and cannot understand. But, I shall be well soon. Or so I hope."

 

Darren opened the shoebox and the photos it contained glistened in the fire's light. The smell of new photos filled the air. It reminded Darren how recent his wounds were. The oldest photos were not even a year.

 

DARREN'S CONSIGNMENT

 

"Let's start from the beginning, Fire.  This bundle was taken at Marti Gras. See here, these were taken at a Bourbon Street bar. Several bars, actually. She was overenthusiastic and she got drunk.

She had a hangover for a day and a half! I stayed with her while the rest of my friends went to the jazz festival . . .

 

"Here are some photos from our camping trip. I had to show her everything because it was the first time she'd been camping. Of course, she got me back when we went fishing the following month.

 

"These are just some shots from around campus.  Me and her. We had a bunch of classes together. That's how we met. classes. . ..

 

"Summer. These are the photos from Colorado. We went hiking in the mountains and visited the Indian sites. We were both going to be Archeology majors. Right . . .

 

"These are from Galveston. Her home. I met her family. Nice, except her little brother was a punk. I told her as much. Our first fight. She wouldn't speak to me for days. Oh well.  That's water under the bridge. . ..

 

"Here's us working together on a class project. Further proof that life is unfair: we liked to work together. We did better together than apart. First time I got an 'A' on those damn things. Oh God! I've lost my best friend. . ..

 

"I'm not even sure where she went."

 

The fire silently consumed the last of the photos. Darren sobbed as he watched them curl up and turn black. He hoped his

sadness would be lifted and disappear up the chimney with the rolling cloud of smoke. But, he only felt marginally better. He

had failed.

 

THE CAT

 

"None of this was necessary. It wasn't your fault after all."

 

THE FIRE

 

"My job is done. The offending pieces are burned."

 

DARREN TO ALL

 

"Thank you, friends, for understanding my bitterness. You've been a great help. I cannot forget. I'm not sure if I want too, now. I don't understand the past. I don't have a plan for the future. And I can't stand still. I must begin again despite how I feel."

 

Darren watched the multicolor flames die down.  He stroked the cat and thought of the good times and the bad times some more. He knew that Love and Pain were in his future as well as his past.

 

Next time, he hoped it wouldn't be such a shock. Maybe, maybe this catharsis had helped after all.

 

When the flames were gone only the soft amber glow of the coals lit the sleeping forms of Darren and the cat. For both of them, there was a happy future in their dreams.

 

Author's Note

read and enjoy

Reviews

[No one]

Moving on is a large part of recovery. The symbolism of burning photographs in a fire is powerful enough to show the reader a relationship is finished, love is dead, a bond is broken, and the main character no longer wants to remember.
It reads nearly like a fable, with the end a moral lesson about the benefit of getting over a broken union.