Crash & Burn by Lalah-Simone

Crash and Burn
For Alex

The first thing I remembered was the wind. Like a forlorn wolf, a beaten child howling sorely in my ear.
I was buffeted around – a toy caught in the strong hand of God’s updraft; the last leaf on a winter tree.
The air punched and pulled as I fell, leaving me black and blue and dazed, the stars flying around my
head just as real as the stars I was shooting past at great speed. Warp speed, the speed of light,
the speed of sound paled in comparison to the dark, loud, empty fall I was experiencing.

Stars, there’s a start. Or an end to a start, I suppose. Even slipping unnoticed past these firey giants,
sparkling, tamely winking like the eyes God used when he dropped or pulled me towards Earth.
I could see that great big green and blue yonder, more of a marble than I, more like the middle
ball in Newton’s Cradle – Earth doesn’t move but something big has happened. Earth’s unaware of the
shockwaves running through it. Earth is a blind mute with ears that still function, grasping at straws of
meaning from snippets of sound. Earth is the child playing hide-and-seek, listening as the count down
commences.

The speed tears me. Not in two, but the newly acquired speed peels me as I hurtle towards the blind
planet and flecks of dust-that-was-me leave sparkling trails of orange and brown. Red and white charred
black, sprinkles behind me as sporadically as a child’s cake decoration. The bone of me is dry and
sparks. My outer shell is black and cracked. I am coal, I burn. I burn magnicifently as I enter unsuspecting
Earth’s atmosphere.

Marked by fire, I fell spectacularly, my ribbons of bone trailing as a glamour – beauty always masks it’s
intentions. I was as gorgeous and full of promise as a Mayday parade, although with more speed,
more fire, more danger, more fun!  Who would choose a life of tame mediocrity sparkling along, when
you could crash and burn, your flames leaving a scar as vital and vibrant fifty years from now as today?

Consumed by flames and larger than life in my death, I fall blindly, serenely deafened by the song
of stars, the breath of God. I’m the ball at the end of Newton’s Cradle and I kissed the waiting Earth.

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~ by jeditopcat on 27 February, 2009.