The Flames of Liberation

By: Alexander L. Fred

This is the story of Stephen. But it is also the story of mankind. Stephen woke up as if it were any other day. He heard the alarm, groaned, and begrudgingly got out of bed. He walked into the bathroom, took a shower, and brushed his teeth. He threw on some clothes, tied his shoes, and tightened his tie. He poured some coffee, made some toast, and watched the morning news. He got in his car, pulled out of the driveway, and drove down the street. Just a normal day. Still groggy, he turned on the radio, waiting for the effects of the stimulant in the cup holder to awaken him completely. When he got on the bridge, he yawned and looked at the clock. He was good on time, so this usual traffic jam was not going to be a problem. And as he did every morning, he looked around, taking nothing in. The music continued playing, but he didnt really listen. The horns beeped loudly, but they too had no effect on him. This was just a normal day, a day that ran almost as ritualistically and pre-planned as a daily Mass: Wake up and go to work. Work at a leisurely pace. Not too little or you could get reprimanded. Not too hard or you might stand out. Leave work at the same time. Drive home. Eat dinner. Watch the same programs. Look at some pornography. Go to bed. And then wake up to start all over. Life rarely held excitement for Stephen. As Stephen looked at everything around him, not really seeing any of it, he thought about the cycle of his life. He thought about the cycle a lot. And when he did, he remembered his days in college when his ideals and ideations seemed to have no end. Little did he know back then that he would wake up twenty years later married to his third wife with two kids that he rarely saw,

working a dead-end job. He sacrificed his ideals for self-sufficiency and his ideations for comfort. And oh, how he regretted it. If he could turn the clock back to another time, he would do everything differently. As his contemplations into the past and into his present continued, Stephen suddenly noticed in the distance something falling from the sky. It looked like a giant fireball many miles away and he wondered if he was daydreaming. Perhaps he we was more fatigued than he thought and had fallen into some hallucinogenic day dream. Or maybe his repetitious life had reached a boiling point and all of his sanity was suddenly spilling over the edges. Either way, he didnt really care, but he was interested in this falling fireball. Not worried necessarily, just interested. But as the ball approached closer to the Earths surface, it vanished from his eyes. He could see a faint glow, but the distance and the buildings covered a good deal of it. He continued staring outward intrigued by this new sight. One might say that it was the first time in a very long time that Stephen had truly looked for deeper meaning behind anything. Then, for just an instant, he saw the greatest flash of light that ever before passed a mans eyes. And without warning, the light suddenly vanished as did everything else. He blinked several times, but all that remained in his vision was darkness. Whatever that bright flash was, it had blinded him. Immediately he could hear screams all around, but he could not necessarily locate their source. Stephen had not grown accustomed to listening to anything. And so it was the same now. The screams and pleas of help simply entered one ear and passed through his brain without ever truly connecting, only to exit through the other ear. Fear began to creep up on Stephen as he continued to concentrate on his sight, or rather, the lack thereof. Would he ever see again? What was going on around him? Why were there these screams? What was that fireball drifting to Earth? All of these questions and more drifted

in his mind. That which he had always taken for granted now seemed like much more than just a cheap keepsake to be thrown into a pile of junk. His eyes now seemed magnificently important and he began to fear less and pity more. Why had he never seen what there was to see? Why had he allowed himself to be trapped in this bubble of monotony? Why, just why? Stephen laid back in the chair in his car and he heard the words spewing as if in great earnestness from some man on the radio: Emergency report. This is not a drill. America is under attack. It is yet unknown all of the locations and those already known are being held confidential until more information comes to surface. Stay tuned. Emergency report. This is not a drill. America is under attack The irony was that this repitious message might be Stephens final eulogy. Stephen closed his eyes, though blinded as he was, it was not necessary. Perhaps it was more out of habit than anything else. While they remained closed, he began to think back on his life: His mothers beautiful face. The smell of a warm cooked apple pie cooling in the kitchen. The sound of rain drops pitter-pattering against the window. The touch of his brothers arm as they wrestled. The sound of his mother yelling at them to cut it out. All of those details never taken into consideration suddenly stood out. Every image, every sensation that existed in his mind now manifested itself in greater ways than Stephen could have ever dreamed. Unfortunately, his mothers house was not always full of good dreams; sometimes there were nightmares and so it was with the next flasback: The evil giant walking out of the bedroom yelling and carrying that bottle of vile whisky in his hand, the stench of it on his breath. In the background were the tears of Stephens mother, very audible despite her attempts to quiet her whimpers of pain and degradation. His yells were intermixed with hiccups and stutters, but his anger was surely present. Why he was angry,

nobody ever really knew, but his anger still remained present. When his brother pointed and laughed, Stephen remembered his fear of that day and the love of his brother

Oh, how, Ricky refused to take it, refused to back down. He would rather laugh at the giant and be beaten than bow his head courteously for only a slap on the wrist. But this was the last time, Ricky would be beaten. Ricky was sixteen. I was twelve. Ricky always liked to play with me. Hed push me around, teach me to play baseball, and of course he tried to teach me to wrestle. Ricky had gone onto the state championships two years in a row, placing third one of those years. He always told me that I could do better than him, but I knew that wasnt true. But as much as he loved to teach me, I always loved learning more. He was my only real father figure. But after this day, he was gone

The evil giant walked forward and stuttered incomprehensible words. Only the words stop, laughing, and faggot were audible. He may have said more or just stuttered over those three words, but Stephen would never know. Nonetheless, Ricky just kept laughing and pointing until finally he found the bottle of whisky smashed against the side of his head. Falling to the ground, blood flowing free from his mangled hair, Ricky grabbed the chair and pushed himself up, only to be kicked in the face by a steel toe boot. Then came the ribs, the stomach, the groin. And Ricky laid there, as if dead. But finally, the moment of triumph occurred when the evil giant turned his back and Ricky picked himself up, grabbed a piece of wood from the broken chair that his body had crushed, and beat the evil giant to a death that was more kind than he deserved. But it was not

death that satisfied Ricky. Ricky didnt stop until the evil giants face had been smashed completely, until it could no longer be called human. Their mother stood at the doorway and said nothing, but the tears on her face were dry and there no more whimpers from her mouth. It was then that Ricky ran from the house. The last thing he told Stephen was to always fight back. To never take it without a fight. And here Stephen sat. He forgot to fight back. While the fists of the evil giant no longer touched him, the fists of his own slave hood did. Indentured to his job, to his society, to the expectations of his peers, he was twelve years old again trembling, watching his brother find freedom while the shackles remained on his arms. And suddenly he knew that Ricky took those punches so that he would not have to. But after that day, Ricky could only trust in Stephen and Stephen had broken Rickys trust. The bruises were not on his flesh anymore, but they were very much on his soul. Still unable to see, he found the door handle and pushed the car door open. He stumbled and felt the roof of his car. Standing there in the heat, he began to feel his way along the bridge using cars as his guiding posts. He stumbled into a few and fell on several occasions, but he got back up and continued walking as if this short walk would prove his victory over his conformity to the slave masters wishes. It was as if he thought that he would finally prove to his brother that he could fight back. To never take it without a fight. As he walked, his sight slowly began to return. Bit by bit, he could pick up blurry images. At first, they were beyond comprehension, just blobs of colors that merged together into weird forms and shapes. But the blurs began to come together. The colors separated and the shapes differentiated. While he could still barely see, he knew now that when he saw a car, it was not a

person. And when he saw a black car, it was not a red car. His sight grew more and more until he could see with much greater clarity. Blinking, he realized that his vision was still quite spotty. The distance appeared much less vividly than previously before. But rather than feeling sadness that he had lost part of the sensation of sight, he was thrilled that he was now seeing, truly seeing, clearer than ever before. The great fire, by blinding him to the world, a world he now saw burning, had shown him that he must severe the puppet masters strings. He wandered over to the side of the bridge and leaned on the railing. Staring down into the water, he could still hear screams all around and the sounds of helicopters above. Pushing himself around, he looked around at the torn and tattered world and wondered that if in same way it had always been like this forever, just under the surface. Despite the damage in his eyes, the destruction around him still stood out in all of its vivid and disturbing details. The city was burning and where once buildings stood sky high, only black ash and blacker smoke flew through the air. The buildings that had not fallen simply sat as ruins while many others were being devoured whole by the great flames. As he stared at the city, buildings collapsed inward upon themselves and he could see the bodies of men jumping from windows. Here they appeared as tiny little ants, but he knew what they were. They were men who in fear and panic choose to jump and die quickly than to allow their bodies to be engulfed in the firestorm. Meanwhile, the helicopters were flying all over the area. Many of them were tagged with news logos and Stephen thought to himself about the money these men with cameras and microphones were making off the death and destruction of an entire city. How evil must these men be?

On the bridge, wen and women were running away from the flames, jumping from their cars. They had no consideration for the life around him and Stephen wondered how he managed, in his blindness, to make it through the wreckage. Cars had crashed and the hoods of a great many were consumed in fire. Many bodies laid against the steering wheels of those vehicles drenching the interior with their blood. Some bodies appeared to have been thrown from the cars and many others simply looked to have been stampeded upon by many feet. Stephen could hear the moans and whimpers of those near death. Their bodies bruised, battered, and torn by the disaster and the hatred of the men on this bridge. Stephen suddenly realized with astonishing clarity that he was one of these men. Perhaps his eyes had been opened, but yesterday, in his blindness, he would have allowed his two-hundred dollar shoes to smash into a mans head so he could run for refuge. He turned his back to the wreckage and stared again into the depths of the water. The waters stood in stark contrast to the destruction all around. In it, he saw beauty and in a way that he had long forgotten. The soft movement of the waves pushing the blue ambience into uniform shapes one after the other. Stephen continued staring and he wondered if those waves could eat him whole if he were to jump. Could that blue ambience consume his entirety and lead him away from this destruction and an inevitable death? Might he finally understand the peace he now felt and feel it beyond measure. The world burned around him. Men killed other men. No remorse. No love. This was his world. And when they did not kill, they walked around in a daze conforming to the inebriated appearance of their fellows, sacrificing their humanity for arrogance, wealth, ego, and ultimately an unending abyss of emptiness. But this water seemed to call out to him and to say that by abandoning that arrogance, that wealth, and that ego, his emptiness would forever fall from him

and he would be filled for eternity with love, joy, and peace. But to abandon those things, he must first take that leap of faith. Realizing that he could now see the things he had never allowed himself to see before, the emptiness behind the flesh, the pain within the soul, and the hatred within the heart, he knew that a world that would only burn itself to the ground out of hatred and self-righteous egotism was not for him. He could no longer conform to what he had been transformed into. It was time to fight back. It was time to push back against this drunken society and stand up. The tyranny of demons can not stand forever. His final thoughts were short, but they were not without purpose: I forgive you for your beatings, dad. Now Father, take me now and make me new. And then he jumped from the bridge laughing and crying simultaneously for he was in such bliss and yet his heart grieved for those who were now dying. He fell into the waters and as he drowned in the peaceful love that enveloped him, he opened his mouth and let the waters fill him. And as he drowned, he thought a saw a man up above, glowing, reaching towards him. So he reached up and time vanished forever, being exchanged with a much more purposeful eternity. And as he drowned in the waters, the land above remained dry and in its dryness it burned. It burned from the inside of a mans heart to the outside of a great many buildings. In the end, the flames spread without any means of being stopped and as those that survived started the fire again. Forever the flames spread until one day, there was nothing left to burn. All cities were ash and all men were gone. And the strangest truth was that Stephens life, one of repitition and tedium, became the story of history, a history that in itself was ignited and turned to ash, so as to be forgotten forever. This is the story of Stephen. But it is also the story of mankind.