Burning Down The House

She stared into the fireplace with a look of dead tears, frozen by the sight of a pool of endless flames. The dimension of time had vanished. There was no "then", "now", or "ever". Irreversible. A thousand lifetimes and a thousand lifetimes after that wouldn't change a thing. The world has lost its meaning.

Her friend had let herself in the front door of the elite San Francisco mansion. She entered the room unannounced. "You have a fire going?"

No reply.

"Wait, what is it you're burning in there? Those are papers! Why would you burn so many papers?"

No reply.

Her friend sat down having ascertained the seriousness of the situation. This was a death of some sort. The friend sat in fellow silence. Until, finally:

"It's my manuscript..."

"Manuscript? Manuscript of what? I never knew."

The flames crackled, feeding off the permanence of their devouring deed. Her friend didn't like the knot crawling into her stomach.

"I don't get it. Why burn it? Why didn't you ever let me see it? What was it about?"

What did any of that matter now? Those are questions for when times existed. Why doesn't God take her life now? The possibility of meaning is gone.

Her friend settled into the luxury sofa. She felt her questions had been indiscreet but curiosity had gotten the better of her. A book! Who knew? Somehow, the act of watching it burn filled her with a wild desire to read the blackening words, to reach out and grab life from the fire. A camera crew should be here.

Hope is a cruel word. It keeps the toil of impossibility alive long after the certainty of demise. Appearances are for deceiving. Love stays out reach, always calling out, like a drowning victim. The manuscript writer faced the void of her love being a lie. Nothing left to do but eat, sleep, and wait to die.

"It was nothing," she claimed. "A dream you dream alone is just a dream. The illusion is gone."

Her friend watched her free-falling right before her eyes. The mask of success being slowly ripped away, hers was a stolen life and the thief could steal no more. Yes, she had all the signs of success but never success itself.

Her friend felt trite in saying, "But you have everything. This gorgeous house, your wonderful family. You've been married 25 years! Anyone would love to have all that."

It no longer mattered what other people believed of her. What does a thief really own? He has to give it back in the end. Then his true life is exposed.

The friend beside her began to understand. This wasn't a case of trying to cheer someone up. It was a case of a lost dream, a lost life. Money was a dream until her true dream was dead. Now all her prized possessions were mocking her. By seeking praise she lost it. The chickens had come home to roost. pecking her apart.

Her friend struggled for words. What do you say to someone whose life is irredeemably lost? To try and comfort her would be an insult. She'd been secretly living off this writing dream for years apparently, an entire secret life. But now was the time to speak truth to friendship.

"Sometimes the greater danger is in doing nothing."

Do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Those were cornerstones of her "success". Yes, that behavior is fatal for others - but not for someone whose dream is still alive. The only future now is self-destruction. No more pretending. Just get out.

"It's not me. It's God. God never wanted me to have anything I wanted. So I suffered through the things I didn't want just like a good person should do. Do you know this marriage would have ended years ago had I just done what I wanted? How responsible is it to suppress affairs? I tried to kid myself that I was something more. But how can I be? How can that book have been anything coming from someone hiding in her marriage her whole life? Better to burn it before anyone finds the damning evidence of my self-betrayal."

Suddenly, she was homeless. This house did not belong to her. It belongs to her dream. And that dream was literally a pile of ashes. She was once on the inside, now she's on the outside, doomed to forever wander in empty isolation peering only into the homes of others. She started to scream.

Her friend was helpless. She wanted to say "It will get better" but couldn't muster the hollow words out of her mouth. The screaming turned into full blown hysterics. Inconsolable.

"I'm dying! I'm dying!"

The friend tried to grab her, to give reassurance but the flailing of the arms and legs was too violent. Should she call 911? How far does this go? The agitated woman slipped off the couch onto the floor, the situation spiraling out of control.

911 was called.

As her friend sat on the couch waiting for the paramedics to arrive, she too had a slight epiphany. "I'll be damned. Dreams really are not optional."