The Fire Not Quenched

The Fire Not Quenched

I jogged steadily around the park. My feet kept to a simple rhythm. As soon as the tips of my toes, nestled inside my running shoes, grazed the sidewalk I was already taking another step. I barely made a sound other than my heavy breathing as I attempted to pace myself.

Around me life was moving. Kids were playing. Adults were conversing casually. It was a gorgeous spring morning. It was a near perfect day. The sun was shining out the corner of a cloud and the rays warmed the cheeks of those who stood still long enough to feel them. There was a small breeze. Not enough to send hair flying, but enough to tremble the ends on those with long hair.

My earphones were in my ear. I was listening to soft music. Classical. It fit the day and the environment. Happy children and parents. Warm weather. The piano playing in my ears. I close my eyes briefly and let myself go to the day.

I open my eyes to something different. Another reality. This is not a park. The weather has changed. The clouds stir above me in circular motions. They're gray and ominous. The feeling to strike me first is the heat. It scorches my arms and legs and burns at the flesh of my face. My lips begin cracking. I blink, trying to encourage my eyes to tear.

I am standing in what looks like a junkyard. A never ending pile of old odds and ends lay around me. There are chairs and books. Vases even. I see colorful purses and shoes that look brand new. A person rushed past me in a frantic state. She ignores me and runs towards one of the purses lying at the foot of one of the towering piles of junk.

The woman clutches the object in her hands and presses it to her chest forcing a smile with her dry lips and cracking skin. Then the purse disappears. She puts her fingers into her hair and her face draws into a tormented expression. She cries, but she has no tears. Then she runs to me, grabs my wrist.

“Did you see it? Did you see where it went? I need my purse. It cost me two-hundred. I need my purse. Every time I find it, it disappears again. I need it.”

I shake my head slowly and she leaves without another sound. I see the tips of her frizzled hair are burned, burned by the incredible heat of this alternate reality. I do not dwell on the thoughts of this woman. Here, I feel quite thirsty. I have a water bottle strapped to my side. I take a swig, but it seems to evaporate before I feel quenched.

While I have the bottle held over my mouth, a man runs at me. He grabs the bottle from my hands greedily and with shaking hands he squeezes it into his mouth. I can see the steam rising as he attempts to drink. Once emptied, he squeezes the bottle and throws it into the rest of the rubble strewn around us. Then he points to his mouth again. He tries to scream, his thirst not quenched, but nothing more than a crackling squeal seems to come through.

Frightened, I dash ahead. I nearly slip and fall in a pile of soft ground. I steady myself and look down. There is a freshly decaying corpse in the dark dirt. I clench my teeth and a shiver runs down my spine. It's the body of an elderly woman. Her skin has turned to a gray-tinge and sections of her face have rotted inward. Suddenly a worm wiggles itself from her eye and the corpse opens it's jaws.

“Save me!” she screamed and her arm clutched at my leg.

I hurry ahead, not looking back. There are people all around me, but most are in a state of panic and confusion. Keeping a quick pace, I finally see someone else appearing more human-like and less like wild animals scavenging through the wreckage. I approach the teenage boy who is sitting absent-absentmindedly at a computer desk. He is typing hastily away on a keyboard and staring at a black screen.

“What's going on?” I ask him.

He doesn't look at me. He keeps typing despite the dark screen.

“It seems my computer is not functioning correctly. I'm going to have to buy another one.”

Yet, he keeps typing.

“No, I mean...where are we? Where am I?”

“Can you see if my CPU is plugged in?” He replied.

I frown, but I still look behind the desk. There are cords bundled together, but there is no place to plug them in. I glance back at the teen boy. He looks irritable. He grabs his keyboard and throws it to the ground. It bounces and breaks into several large pieces. Then he begins patting his head over and over while gnashing his teeth.

“It's so hot! My skin has been burning! And I'm thirsty and hungry!”

I pull out a granola bar and hand it to him. He snatches it, eats it, but wails after he does.

“It never helps! I'm always hungry!”

He runs back to his computer for comfort, but when he sits down in the chair again it bursts into flames. I take several steps back from the scorching flames and cover my eyes with my arm. When I look again the boy is once more typing away while staring blankly at the screen. He has a few severe burns on his arms and calves. Yet, he ignored my presence as if we've never met.

I decide to walk further. If I could get in, then I could get out. Right?

Yet, the further I go the worse the scene gets. There is only more flame and heat. There are more terrifying screams and people running frantically about covering their ears and eyes. It is the picture of horror and madness. It is like a nightmare I need to awaken from.

“I want out of here!”

I see the decaying old woman walking towards me. I back away and trip among the artifacts in the pile of trash. An antique lamp is next to my head. A plasma TV to my right. Something from within the rubble grabs my neck and begins pulling me in. I let out a scream of my own.

My eyes open and a few people are standing over me. The sky is a gorgeous shade of light blue. The birds are singing. Children are laughing and playing in the distance. I was back in my own world.

There are four individuals stooping over me. I recognize the old woman immediately. She was the corpse I had seen. I also recognize one of the two younger women. The one is dressed very nicely and has an expensive name brand purse hanging on her right shoulder. The third person is a teenage boy. He is identical to the one in my awful dream who had sat at the computer typing away at a black screen.

However, the fourth person was not in my dream. The woman smiles warmly and asks like the others if I am okay. I sit up, a bit puzzled about what had happened.

“You fell and bumped your head while you were jogging.” The purse lady explained.

“Do you need an ambulance?” the teen boy asked.

“I'm fine. I'll be fine.” I waved the four of them away.

I stand and brush my sweaty shirt. When I look up the fourth person, the unfamiliar woman, is still there. She is dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. A worn deep brown leather purse hangs at her side. She smiles and reaches out her hand to me. She is an attractive woman.

“I'm Bethany,” she says when I hesitantly shake her extended hand, “Are you absolutely sure you're going to be fine? I saw you trip. It was quite the spill.”

I nod, “I'll be okay. This bump on my forehead is nothing in comparisons to the wild dream I had when I fell.”

“Must have been one really bad dream.”

“It was the worse thing I've ever seen. People were drinking, but they were still thirsty. Everyone was acting so odd. And it was hot. There was fire and screaming.”

“Sounds pretty awful.”

“I recognized that lady with the purse, that boy, and the old woman. They were all in that nightmare, but you were not.”

The woman shrugged her shoulders, “Well, whatever you saw, it definitely wasn't heaven.”

I thought about this a minute. The woman turned and started to leave. She turned around a waved before continuing on. I didn't start jogging again. Instead I looked around me. I looked at the trees and the grass, the faces of people around me, at the clouds, and the leaves, and the squirrels hopping all around.

How is life possible? How are we able to do the things we do? How does the environment function beyond science? Where does it begin and where does it end? How are we alive and living on earth which is a planet among a space full of other celestial bodies and stars? What is beyond space?

I feel a lightness in my chest. I glance in the direction the kind woman had gone. She is just about to disappear over a hill and as I look closely I see what looks like a faint pair of wings at either side of her shoulders whenever she walks in the sunlight.

I run to her.