Broken Flame

He flickers haphazardly across the square, a broken flame. Those who walk near him are afraid to get too close, to look him in the eye, lest he burns them. Such is the life of this shattered flare.

Once, he was beautiful. Then, the same people who will no longer look at him wished to touch him. To burn their eager fingers.

And he let them, and they were burnt, and they blamed him for this.

So they drove him away. They broke this lone flame. They are responsible.

He is not responsible, or so he tells himself each long day as he sputters through the city. Seeing everything. Seeing nothing. His eyes glazed over long ago.

You cannot pour alcohol on a naked flame, or something terrible will happen. Something terrible has happened, to this flame. This fire is out of control, raging through the streets, a maelstrom of anger and vengeance.

Silver is a cold colour, the cold steel of a blade flashing, one-two…But blood is hot, hot, it flows beneath his fingers, hot and sticky and red and life-death…

And he cannot tell if he has killed, or been killed, because this blood, sticky on the pavement, is his own, it seems to him. His eyes are weak. This flame is finally burning low.

He sits – no strength to stand – like someone has extinguished him, extinguished the fire that burns relentlessly within him.

He is a broken flame, and he is doused.