Fire Dream
By H.F. Gibbard © 2006
His arms were thick with sweat and blood and black coal dust,
Yet he labored on, the strange, crippled yet powerful fireman
Shoveling tremendous loads of dark fuel into a gigantic furnace
Whose hellish fires raged throughout the day.
By curiosity I visited him one evening
In the underground chamber where he had fed the flames
And, to my amazement, found it cool and spotless,
The fires gone, free of ash and soot.
The fireman smiled.
For a moment, I saw the flames relight in his eyes.
"Come," he said, "There is something more I must show you."
"The true product of my fires."
I followed him into the furnace
Then through a long cool tunnel made of ancient ceramic brick.
The tunnel lengthened, expanded magically in every dimension as we traveled
through it.
Until at the end of an enormously long hall, I saw the impossible.
Light ineffable filled the hall
Illuminating gigantic stained glass windows
Portraying ancient warrior kings blessed by divine grace
With a warmth of color as yet unseen by mortal eyes.
Chartres blue filled their eyes and Burgundy red their hair.
Blazing orange and saffron stained their oriflamme.
Silver, cobalt, pure golden hues gilded their holy armor.
With pure hands upraised they blessed us with both heat and light.
I fell to my knees before the shimmering figures, basking in their glow.
"We must not tarry here," the fireman said, "The images last for but a
moment."
I followed him with great regret back through the tunnel
Which darkened and diminished then disappeared behind us as we departed.
Back outside, the fireman placed two sprigs of ivy into the clean and empty
furnace.
Then took a knife and opened his veins
Letting the blood flow onto the floor where a new fire would soon be lit.
Taking a handful of coal dust from a nearby bin, he lit and nursed a tiny
flame.
"I must return to my labors," he said, lifting his coal-stained spade,
"Tomorrow evening, the images will reappear."
"Return, then, if you like," he said, gazing at the tiny flame. -- I burst
into tears.
"So much pain! So much striving!" I cried, "for but a moment of
illuminated beauty!"
The fireman smiled.
"Is it that different," he said, "with the flames that lie within you?"
"You should be grateful to me, mortal
"For as I have shown you, even the fires of Hephaestus do not light
themselves."The End
H.F. (Frank) Gibbard is a lawyer by day and a writer of speculative fiction by night. He has stories published or forthcoming in such venues as Anotherealm , Astoundingtales , Gateway SF , Static Movement , Theatre of Decay , Would That it Were , and in several anthologies. He also writes a bimonthly legal history column for the Colorado Lawyer magazine and is the editor of Kenoma , a speculative fiction 'zine.
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