When faced with the prospect of a uncontrollable fire, we look for solutions. When crime gets out of control, we look to laws and enforcement to regain control. Once peace is restored, we are able to return to our lives as if nothing had happened.
When a fire begins to burn and grow, we set another fire. We create a controlled fire to eat up the fuel for the first fire, and we keep one under our control. When the fire is gone, we snuff out the one we caused. Balance is restored and peace is returned.
These are the actions of people who live in fear. They see crime and they fear the criminals. They see a fire, and they fear the heat and flames. They reach out to those who can restore the harmony they live in. But what about the victims?
What happens to those who have suffered the crimes or the flames? What about those whose lives are turned upside down by these things that are out of their control?
A different fire begins. One that can’t be controlled by another fire, a burning for true justice and balance to be restored.
You and I are not that different. We’ve suffered at the hands of crime and flames. Suffered at the hands of those who desire to tear us all down, to break us of our existence in this forsaken world.
The enforcers and the firefighters. They weren’t there when they were needed most, they were not there to save your family or save the child abandoned in hell. Our fires were ignited in those moments of hopelessness and existential crisis. And now we burn together with the hottest flames. We burn those around us, gaining more fuel to burn brighter and brighter.
But eventually these fires are going to meet. These two fires are going to burn up the other’s fuel and one of them will go out. One of them will end, and once again peace will be restored.
Only one of us can continue to burn, only one of us can see justice for what was done to us. When this is all done, a fire will burn all this down and leave nothing but ashes and scorched earth behind as a testament to the torment we’ve had to endure in our existence.
I can’t allow it to be you, Burned Man. Your fire is born out of a tragedy, and burns for the sake of it. Eventually, your flames will consume you and no one will remember it. It’s a selfish desire, vengeance. And as bright as your fire burns, it consumes your fuel faster.
My fire burns brightly, for all to see. My fires will consume this wretched place, and I will stand on the ashes of it all and find a rest I’ve never known.
So burn with me, Burned Man. Try to be the controlled fire.
Fight my fire with yours,
and let the hottest flame burn into eternity.