Ashes

Long ago, and far away, this could have happened.

There was something impossible about the image of her as she sat, perfectly poised, yet somehow ragged in demeanor. She was an expensive wooden statue with a crack that continued to grow upwards, slowly from her feet, like a tree. The crack branched out into her face, and she laughed as if breaking tickles. Her gaze was glacial, like an oiled glass she slipped away from the present to be in a place without time. She took a drink and felt uncertain.

There was something terrifying about the image of him, as he stood quite admirably in doorways, forever arriving, and always almost leaving. but there was a flame that flickered in his eye, and it was a flame from the hell inside that kept his demons. Regardless, he looked happy, and somewhere under the veneer of skin, past eyes like stones, there was a beautiful ghost that could be seen in his smile. He took a drink and waited for a moment that never happened.

Beyond desire the wooden girl stood with her back to the Devilish man as he waited in suspension between this and that. And his ghost wanted to haunt her in her haven of timelessness, and oh how she had wanted to feed his fire.

Instead she walked away and did not look back. The crack travelled all the way up through her head. She split in half. The man stayed standing in the doorway, and ultimately burst into flames.

There is everything unknowable about the castle on fire. As the people looked yonder, they wondered, "How did it start, and is anyone inside?"

But the ashes keep secrets. They do not tell stories.