Burning House: a poem

An insurance salesman, a philosopher, an economist, and a pyromaniac (a hobby; he’s currently bouncing back and forth between a few contractors for work) walk into a bar. They’ve all had a long day and the silence is dense enough to be comfortable. It hangs around and between them, cloudlike, until the pyromaniac turns to the rest of the group and asks, "How much is a house worth when it's burning to the ground?"

A ripple shoots through the airs, shattering the tired stillness of the room. Each of the men stirs as the shards of echoing sound hit him. Tiny enough to sting just a little at impact, it shakes each man awake. “What?” asks the insurance salesman as the clouds part from in front of his eyes.

The pyromaniac repeats his question and the men look at him, puzzled. The insurance salesman, a simple man who enjoys the sound of his own voice, laughs and says, “Well… I guess it depends on the policy the homeowner has.”

The pyromaniac sits quietly, staring off into space. The economist, highly educated with an ego just as inflated as his grades had been, decides to fill the silence and says, “In this economy, it’s probably not worth anything while it’s still standing.” He looked at the insurance salesman and smiled. “If I were you, I’d definitely be investigating the homeowners.”

The insurance salesman laughs again and says, “That’s kind of our standard operating procedure. Our clientele is usually pretty oblivious but every once in a while someone can be convinced they may have forgotten to turn the stove off.”

“What about people in lower income neighborhoods? In my experience, they usually remember things like that,” said the economist.

The insurance salesman snorts and, after a moment, wipes the tears from his eyes as he gasps for breath. “Even if they could afford it, they know their crap isn’t worth insuring!”

The economist can’t help but smirk. The philosopher, a man of somber disposition, ignores the larger implications behind the joke and asks, “Is there not value in any kind of house? The shelter it provides from the elements must be worth something or houses wouldn’t be worth anything regardless of their status as charred or not. Think of the homeless. Don’t they desire a home of any sort to shelter them form the elements? If you’re going to say more modest homes aren’t worth anything, then you have to agree that larger homes, which only differ in giving the inhabitants more space to themselves, are worthless as well. If space is the primary source of value, then the homeless would be the happiest.”

The pyromaniac’s empty glass clinks as he sets it down on the laminated bar. “That’s an interesting point. I was just going to say that it was only valuable as it was burning. You can’t buy entertainment like that.”

With that he waves to his friends, spins around on his stool, and walks outside. Through the door, his friends watch as he disappears into the night and shiver at the blast of cold wind that rushed in behind him. Moments later, the fire alarm begins screeching and the panicked bar patrons run out to find their home away from home lighting up the night sky like a mighty torch.

The World Is On Fire

The world is on fire. The flames are invisible but only burn all the hotter for it. Since the beginning, we’ve crawled out of the ooze from which we’re born, sopping wet and mercifully coated with a protective layer of the liquid still clinging to us. The coats vary in thickness, some more uneven than others. The flames lick at us but all they taste is the ooze for a while. The ooze doesn’t last. With each fiery kiss, some of it evaporates away, becoming a cloud that will one day rain over the pool of our origin and give a new life its chance.

Eventually the flames burn through. It’s a subtle change because the layers melt away one at a time and it gets hotter inside each time. Yet when it happens, we know without knowing that it is over. Our time is not immediately over but we feel the burn, numbing our senses, and nothing can be the way it was before. Our chances to live, love, learn, and explore have slipped away through our fingers like the waters of a lazy creek. The End comes when it will, as a thief in the night. We know only that it is impending by the bitter taste of our every breath. Smiles fade quicker and don’t mean as much as they did before. One day we all look past the rain and the life it brings and see only the mud upon which it all rests. Hollow laughter echoes through the empty hallways of our dwelling places and we dissolve with the sound. The blurry, dull edge to the world becomes little more than dead wait, preparing the burdened for their rest.

The thickness of each coat is apportioned by luck alone to each individual. A heavy, even coat is granted to some, gifting them with long life and good health. Some are given a heavy coat, thinner in some places than in others. This results in a long life, though the exposed areas bring problems that will eat away at the physical body long before its time to go. There are an unfortunate few given a sparse coat if any at all. These are the poets, prophets, and mad men of the world. From the first breath, they feel the fire eating away at them. They know that The End is just as much a part of our life as the first breath that announced The Beginning. These are the stirrer of souls that demand that we acknowledge that our powers are limited to between these points. The world is burning and so are we. The fire is unquenchable! What will you do before you burn away to ash?