I walked through the ashes of my life, and I cried as I sung. I sung for my prayers and my hopes, and I cried as I picked each hope out of the ash where it had fallen, and cradled it lovingly. I would then put them in a rucksack, and carry the hopes with me once more.<\/p>\n
\tThe arsonist had been my lover, when he had broken up with me. It had been cruel, and painful, and done in a heartless manner. Especially as he had done it while some blonde trollop hung on either arm. He’d found twins, he told me, and was much happier with them. Between the two of them, the girls didn’t look like they mustered more than five brain cells. But fine, whatever makes him happy.<\/p>\n
\tAnd so here I am, walking through the ruins of my heart, the crumbled remnants of my dreams. The empty structure there was the home where we would live together. The laughing ghosts are our children at play. And above all this is a black hole in the sky, pumping black bile across the land. That, that was our love.<\/p>\n
\tMy heart, wounded and sore, lies elsewhere, locked away inside a box, waiting for the day when it might be safe to come out once more. This has cost me much, many friends and acquaintances, for how could I face their happiness, their laughter, their smiles when I lived in a world of ash, a world shattered?<\/p>\n
\tFriends went in search of my heart. Some spent many days trying to reach it, and those lucky few that did I treasured and gathered close about me, entrusting myself to their love and company. And day by day under their tender care the ashes blew away, and green shoots flowered where there was once ruined earth.<\/p>\n
\tAnd in the months and years that followed I experienced a flowering of my person, nurtured and tended by love and friendship. The crop grew high and strong, and my hopes danced in the air above, their golden wings shimmering in a bright sun. Dreams scudded amongst the clouds, playing with the small white puffs, and in the distance I could hear bells of laughter.<\/p>\n
\tOne fine day I met a shepherd, out tending his flock. A man of the land, he was weather-beaten but kind, and I warmed to his touch. Life became an entangled fantasy, and our dreams flew high together, as our hopes watched. But then thunderclouds began to stir on the horizon, and the land rumbled, and I pulled back, frightened. The shepherd became angry and red, and flame lit his person, and his dreams and hopes turned foul and putrescent. The sky turned black and bilious, and my wishes became ill, and fell to the ground, where they crumbled away in moments. Then a great volcano bestirred itself, and lava and flame fell about the land, and all was ash again. And then I walked through the ashes of my life, and I cried as I sung.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I walked through the ashes of my life, and I cried as I sung. I sung for my prayers and my hopes, and I cried as I picked each hope out of the ash where it had fallen, and cradled it lovingly. I would then put them in a rucksack, and carry the hopes with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[36,4],"tags":[21,22],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-3F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":465,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=465","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":0},"title":"Line Dancing","date":"April 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The lines danced as they sung, an ever evolving wave of green. They read the music by its scent, heard it through its shape, and saw it through the vibrations in the earth. Impulses shattered their conscious, rebuilding it a moment later, yet they never missed a beat. The earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":582,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=582","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":1},"title":"Speaking Soul","date":"January 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"My soul sat forth, 'pon my hand and lectured 'bout my goal It spoke of things far away things dreamed in far off lands \u201cGo!\u201d, it said, face all full of fury \u201cGo and find another one, for I am done with thee\u201d And off it went, slipping from my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":259,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=259","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":2},"title":"Crack the Sky","date":"September 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Life was a strange beast here, for it ebbed and flowed with the tides of the moon. In the morning, all creatures would die, and in the afternoon, find themselves revived as they once were. Even those that had been consumed as prey woke up once more in their homes.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=97","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":3},"title":"Heaven","date":"April 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Not quite my usual fare for a flash fiction, but I was feeling a little more pensive than usual, so it probably reflects my mood. Let me know what you think. The boy wandered down the aisles of the church, his mind it all at ease and wander. He had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":415,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=415","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":4},"title":"The Village","date":"January 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The second of three stories I wrote last night in my return to flash fiction after a month or two off. The bell rang, a single peal loud and long across the valley. A low sound, a mournful sound, it sent the birds scattering from their perches, and the womenfolk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flash Fiction"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=402","url_meta":{"origin":227,"position":5},"title":"Reptilian Eye","date":"December 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"He looked and spied with a reptilian eye A frightening glance that passed me by I shivered and hid lest he spot me again For at that age I was tender, and all but ten I curled and I waited and looked all about Hiding within my stony redoubt A\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Other Writing"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}