Hope

It's one a.m., and I'm watching a fire burn in the fireplace. The heat it puts out fights with the cold air leaking around the seals of the windows; trench warfare, while I lay in no man's land. In that odd way that fires do, my eyes seem to feel the warmth more than the toes that are far nearer.

In the background, beneath the subtle buffetting of the flames, a clock ticks carefully. With each tick, some of the fuel is spent, some of the flame dies. Time wounds all heals, just as assuredly as it heals all wounds. In the face of eternity, even the lifespan of a star is but the tick of a clock. And yet the flame still burns.

I'm waiting for the flames to die, for the last burst of heat, the dying moment. Most of the fuel's gone; what now exists are but remnants of what was. Soon, there will be nothing - no heat, no light, just cold darkness and a faint memory that, once, there was the scent of smoke. And yet the flame still burns.

And yet, for now, it burns. Almost impossibly, bits and pieces that have sloughed off still flame, still refuse to go gently into that good night. As long as there is energy, as long as there is a spark, the whole rages on.

Gradually, it fades. Sections wink out, debris cools, and the room grows darker. Cold pushes forward, claiming more and more ground. And yet the flame still burns, still fights.

A crash of sparks, a structural collapse. There is no main body, no cohesiveness. Just debris. And yet the flame still burns.

And, alas, at the final moment, as the trickle slows, one last brief jet shoots to the sky, and all goes dark. The night has won the battle, and cold pours over the room.

One fire, one spark is gone. It cannot be duplicated, only replaced. It will never, in all of time, exist again. The characteristics of it were unique, a composite of the initial conditions that allowed it to form. The universe shall never see its like again.

And, yet, it was not alone. A single star may wink out in the sky, and though it be surrounded by billions of miles of emptiness, it was not alone: other stars exist, other stars still shine. The light it gave will travel out for the rest of time; the energy it spent will help ignite a billion billion flames. Nothing exists truly alone; nothing is ever in total isolation.

The fire has finally died; and yet, somewhere, the flame still burns.

And though it wins a battle, in the end, the night will lose the war.