Waldorf Literary Review, Issue 13 (2019-2020)

deemed it a job fit to their reputation. It was at this stalemate that the meeting adjourned long after the sun had sank behind the surrounding hills.

Such was the obstinacy of the village inhabitants that no further decision could be reached. Every man agreed that something had to happen, and each man felt himself right and proper in his opinion. Still did every man maintain and uphold his belief that he himself was above the task of approaching the old man.

It was just as well that the villagers could come to no agreement.

“Fire! Fire! Help! Bring buckets of water! Someone help!” came the cries of one man who had been on a late night walk away from his own bed.

The shop of the old man was alight, blazing dry and wicked as the flames devoured the helpless little building. The villagers lent what assistance their sleepy arms could muster, but quickly abandoned their task as it became evident that the fire was not to be stopped. In the mindset of heroism, one self-important villager defied the flames and barreled into the bright, scalding heat. Onlookers watched with tension suppressed by the night as they waited inactively for their “hero” to emerge from the building. A collective sigh of hesitant relief was heard at the hero’s appearance, but a blanket of mild worry fell upon the faces of those selfsame ones that had about been ready to cheer.

The old man was not with the heroic villager.

All crowded around, pressing the brave man for answers to the question of where the old man was at. The strong, able-bodied and able-minded hero coughed, fell to his knees of exhaustion and smoke, shook his head in bewilderment and confusion, and wheezed out, “I couldn’t find him.”

The villagers were stunned. Had the fire been so strong as to steal away the old man’s body so quickly?

None needed ask the question out loud, for, and to each villager’s surprise and horror, the old man materialized from the shadows of the opposite wall of the building nearest his shop.

“I burnt it myself. It deserved to burn. Stupid thing.”

With that, he collapsed to the ground.

The villagers flocked to him, each with the intention to administer aid, but it was quickly apparent that the man would not live out the week. He had no burns, smelled not of smoke; there was no trace of singeing or charring on his clothes or hair. It was the general consensus of the villagers that he had lit the fire himself out of his aged madness and the frustration that he had, PROSE 29