Blessed Bees * last updated May 2, 2000

Elements
by Melissa Oringer
(c) Melissa Oringer, 1995-2000, All rights reserved

Once upon a time there was fire.  And in it lived a flame.  The flame was small and steady and burned a pleasant yellow.  It was a happy flame, content with its lot and life in general.

It burned forever, it seemed, and it never knew exactly what kept it alive.  It only knew that sometimes it grew larger, and sometimes it wasn't more than a flickering ember, but always it burned.  And the walls around it were stone and glass and metal and gem and these it knew to be earth and they were its friends.

From its head arose a queer filmy stuff that snaked and danced in eerie mimicry of its own flickering light.  The flame knew that it was somehow part of its own heat, its own substance and it knew it to be smoke and air and its partner in its eternal dance.

And on a occasion the flame would sizzle and singe and sing with a roar before pulling itself into a small ball of hot vibrant pulsing coal.  It would merge with stuff that flowed as it flickered and brought it into strange awareness of its own heat.  It licked like flame but not flame and strummed the chorus of fire at its core.  It was blue like the hottest blue turned cool and the flame knew it to be water and the water was its song.

Still the flame burns and the earth gleams and the smoke dances and the water sizzles and the spirit of them all billows and rises and seeps into the very pores of the soul.

(c) Melissa Oringer, 1995-2000, All rights reserved