Arson
Author’s Note: The most recent piece of original fiction I have. Therefore uneditied and quite frankly horrible. Probably very confusing, too, unless you’ve read Ted Dekker’s Circle trilogy and equate fire to water. Well, with such a cryptic begining, let’s start…
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I look around me, lost but unable to ask anyone for directions.
This is a foreign land where I am hated.
I am accepted as I am now, for they do not see beyond the color of my skin or the shape of my face. But when they find out who I am, who I represent, they will hate me because they fear the one who sent me.
I am an arsonist.
I do not start the fires; I merely gather the firewood.
This is a dry and brittle land, prime for the searing cleansing of the white-hot flames.
I know that the burning will bring new life, but they do not. They see only a picture of hopeless destruction, even though true life waits beyond. They could be living as green leaved branches even now, instead of as scarred and battered boughs.
I cannot bring the flames. That is the work of my master.
But I can bring in the wood.
I see them all around, and my heart breaks for them. I see the life they could be living, even as they walk in black death.
There are others like me, for I know my master would never send me on a mission alone. I haven’t found them yet.
They don’t know who I am yet, either, though they begin to suspect.
When I am revealed, they will take me to trial. I will stand alone, or maybe I will stand with my comrades.
I do not know if I will have the courage to continue my mission.
Yet how can I not?
This land must burn.
All must be destroyed, all must die.
For without death, there can be no renewal of life.
Maybe, someday soon, a bright green leaf will push up through the charred remnants of this world. And perhaps it will grow into a great tree, tall and strong, dominating the beginning of a new era.
In the meantime, I must gather the wood.
And I pray that my master will send fire.
