[Fiction] Fire

He wasn't sure exactly how he knew, but he knew. It was time. Again. He groaned inwardly at the thought, but there was no escaping it, so the best way to deal with it was to approach it head on.

He turned his head and spoke to his wife the three words that were code for what was about to come next.

"It is time".
She was shocked, to say the least. "So soon? The last one was barely six months ago!"
He nodded. "I don't know why it's come around again so quickly, but I know the feeling too well. It's definitely time".
She nodded tersely. "OK. Do what you have to do. And...please be careful."

She hated seeing this, so she exited the room, and he began to do what he had now become used to doing every year or two. Exactly why he was having to do this again just barely six months from the last time still puzzled him, but there was work to be done now, so he put it to the back of his mind and carried on.

An old fireplace was located on the other side of the room. He made sure it was filled to a suitable amount of dry tinder, and lit it. Then he recited the words that mixed this plane and the next, allowing himself to be a straddler of both. We all live and act on the material place, but he entered a second plane, the metaphorical plane, and resided in both planes concurrently, for as long as he needed to be.

The metaphorical plane gives shape, colour, and tangibility to intangibles that the material plane cannot give shape to; ideas good and bad, deeds good and bad, prayers, the aura of a soul, the darkness or lightness of a heart, other sentient beings, if you have permission to see them, and a few other things.

He saw the changes himself; his hands pulsed a soft blue, meaning his overall state was still good, but there was a thin web of black thread running all them, which became thicker as it moved up his arms. The same web was covering his entire body, with the threads becoming thicker as they converged across to the centre of the web. As he expected, the centre of the web was located over his heart. This was going to hurt.

He slowly, gingerly tested the strands of the web, seeing how tightly they were attached to him, before grasping the web as the very centre, just where his chest was, and pulling it off him, first gently, then with more force. He was right; it did pain. A lot.

He pulled harder and felt some of his strength sapping away. The web curled up into an amorphous blob, with only a few strands left stuck to his heart. He pulled harder and the blob was finally free. He held it in his hands, and it changed shape one more time.

This time it changed into a creature, one he hated to see, but had come to expect during these sessions. The vile creature was the darkness in his heart taking shape, and he held it at arms length. It struggled to attach itself back to him through a variety of means but he managed to keep it at arms length.

His strength was beginning to drop dangerously low, and the creature sensed that. It taunted him, laughing at him, his weakness, his failing strength. It was trying to make him angry, because anger would make him weak, and it strong, and the strategy very nearly worked, but at the crucial moment, he felt a cool breeze on his forehead, and some extra strength added to his failing reserves.

He didn't waste any more time, and hurled the creature into the fire. It stayed in shape for a few more moments, and laughed at him one last time, before disintegrating in the flame. He collapsed onto the floor, and recited the words that took him back into just the material plane.

He just lay there, exhausted, and not in a very dignified state, with flecks of drool hanging off his lips.  Eventually he was able to muster enough strength to get onto all fours, then onto his knees, and then finally enough to stand up.

He swayed uncertainty for a moment or so, and then relief finally came to him as he felt the strength that had been sapped from him finally flow back into his limbs. Rudimentary cleaning of himself followed, after which he exited in search of his wife.

He found her where he expected to find her, where he always found her after these episodes. She was sat in the prayer room, on a chair, eyes closed deep in concentration, mouth murmuring fervent prayers.

"So this is the source of that extra bit of strength I needed." He thought to himself. He waited for a few moments, before walking up to her, slowly, and silently, making no noise. He kissed her softly, gently on the forehead, and watched her reaction. First her lips stopped murmuring, then she opened her eyes slowly.

She scanned his face for the telltale signs of his victory, and when he smiled, she knew he had won, breaking out into a smile of her own. She got him a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted. He took a few sips, only then realising exactly how parched he was. She looked at him, and he saw concern in her eyes.

"You know you can't keep on doing this indefinitely"

He took a few more sips.

"I know. Believe me, I know."

[END]

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Belief in the unseen is a requirement for Muslim believers. This includes belief in jinn, angels, devils, etc, and belief in other planes of existence. However, whilst this piece does take from the idea of both these existing, it is in no way expected to be accurate according to Islamic teachings.

Please take this as it is; just a piece of fiction. The moral of the story is... whatever you decide to make of it.

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Idea for this came to me unbidden about a year ago; I kept bits and pieces of in my mind. Only when writing it out for definite did the story flesh itself out.