Everything Burns

Her body is bound but she is far from broken as she glares at the people she once trusted with her life, the same life they are suddenly eager to snuff out because she dared to differ from them. Because she gave her heart and soul to that white demon of a man, the one with the devil-smile and see-through eyes that were open windows to his wicked soul.

So, now she pays for her heart's sins. Tied to a wooden stake, hands tied tight behind her and her ankles securely crossed at the bottom of the splintering pillar, mere inches away from the small mountain of logs and branches covered in the white man's gasoline. But she is not afraid, she will not quiver and beg for her life the way her people want her to. She will no longer belittle herself for them. She is strong and she will die cursing them.

She idly wonders, as the shaman lights a torch and begins a prayer, what her lover is doing. Where is he now? Has he fled on horseback? Will he break through the crowd on that black stallion of his and save her from her destiny?

No, he will not save her, she knows this and she damns herself for being fool enough to think she could escape fate.

But she does hope he has found some way to avoid the punishment of his own people. She has seen the way the white men treat fools and she would rather see her lover dead than imagine him taking the barrel of a gun to the back of his head before he's shot for treason.

The old man whispers the end of his prayer, looking at her with eyes full of sorrow and sympathy. She looks away from those deep brown eyes and to the torch hovering an inch or so from the wooden pile. Her eyes never tear away, even when the flames are gently pushed to the logs beneath her feet. It does not take long before she is surrounded by a fire that threatens to eat her alive.

And eat her alive the flames do, slowly and painfully. It first tears away the flesh on her feet, then its hot tongues lick up and down her legs, stroking her skin and peeling it away until the bones that lie underneath are showing through patches of burned away muscle.

She never screams, not even when the flames are rising high enough to almost touch her face. Her long hair catches fire and she watches some stray strands burn up like a lighted fuse on one of the white man's cannons. The fire on her hair travels quickly to her head and the flames from below reach out desperately to grasp them, finally taking all of her body into the inferno.

The pain is intense, unbearable. It makes her close her eyes, but that will never stop the tears from falling. A thought passes by: if she cries long and hard enough, could her tears ever douse the flames? No, she tells herself and she feels like she is melting. Ashes rise on the smoke and the sickening realization that a part of those ashes were once a part of her replaces the pain with anger.

She will not forget this. As her body burns, she burns the memories into her soul and carries them into the afterlife where they are pushed to the farthest corner of her consciousness, only to be remembered when she lives again.

---

In a world where buildings reach for the sky and the streets are paved not by proverbial gold but with cracked concrete and tar, a girl lives and dreams. And she dreams of fire.

-End