Sparks
A blazing salvo of rockets traced fire across a crayola canopy. The sky, a swirl of midnight blue and cerulean, lit up; its flashes resembling television's marring of a white wall in an otherwise darkened room. Savagely, there were just enough photons to illuminate a bleak field with craters evenly distributed like a Chinese checkers board. This may or may not have demonstrated an admirable amount of military precision. The rockets twirled and danced like burning dragonflies. A monster in the form of a quadruple helix raced through the summer night unveiling the carnage inflicted only a few hours earlier.
An onlooker, awed by the terrible radiant exhibition of military zeal, may or may not have been surprised by the duration of the display. He may have even begun to grow bored with the dancing, swirling lights. But just as the tedium of the attack had begun to spread tendrils of angst throughout the witness's body, the rockets struck home and another show began.
Where once, sparks danced with order and purpose towards their destination, a blaze now wretched and spewed from the hulk of a motel. The flames fought furiously to flee the former inn. They failed. An obnoxiously loud belch ripped out of the blast making room for the rapidly expanding gaseous release that accompanies an explosion. It's like a fart times a billion and equally as nasty. So nasty in fact that the previous occupants of the motel, those that weren't instantly incinerated or rendered unconscious by the subsequent blast, may or may not have howled as their hair, clothes, and skin caught fire.
A mother may or may not have screamed bloody murder as she fled the site. Her son was missing. In her panic to discover the whereabouts of her loved one, the adrenaline may or may not have blocked the pain signals attempting to inform her brain of the third degree burns spreading ever faster around her torso. She may or may not have died.
Earlier that evening, three friendly family groups all sought refuge from the elements in an empty structure. They had lit a fire both to keep them warm, and to prepare their food. This fire may or may not have been just bright enough to be detected by satellites gliding miles above. Men watching this fire alerted their superiors, who alerted their superiors, who called men of equal ranks in another division. These men alerted their subordinates, who alerted their subordinates, who ordered an attack on the building. These men may or may not have had a policy of zero tolerance for cooking fires.
This fire was much smaller than the eruption that followed, and was not at all in a position to argue with the families over creative control. It stayed grumpily in the confines of medium sized rocks the wise families had built. They may or may not have told fables to their children or jokes to their friends. They may or may not have deserved the miserable deaths handed to them. They may or may not have been terrorists.
A mile away and two-hundred feet up, the dragon responsible for the fire-breathing hovered. Its two sets of wings, set perpendicular to each other, beat constantly. The larger creating a cushion of lift, and the smaller causing the dragon to occasionally pivot. Tucked safely inside, and wired to the nerve endings, veins, and lymph nodes of the beast were two men. They had followed their orders precisely. They may or may not have been making the world safe for Democracy.