Charlie's Blog

I watched the ashes rise, as if they were weightless and simply waiting for an impulse. Their mass negligible and so easily tossed on the wind--if there was any wind. Which there was not, only the heat from the last separation of matter still occurring deep down. The place was as lifeless as the pile of minuscule flakes. But as I looked, there seemed to be a certain "life" to the aimless, listlessness. A life, a movement that the previous iteration of this matter could not have possessed. I recalled Aristotle's claim that "Nature abhors a vacuum". "Indeed" I thought: "The end of one thing is but a temporary emptiness which cannot help but be filled. There is a progress to destruction that breeds growth: the theoretical hope and scientific promise of something better. A natural course of improvement." As I pondered, I saw the faintest glimmer which I mistook for a spark. A small red speck which seemed to grow and overtake the spent carbon, almost as if it were bursting into flames again. This piqued my interest. It had the appearance of fire but it did not burn. As I looked on, the red took on the volatile form of magma, pulsing, the texture changing, dynamic. The pulsing became more rhythmic until it looked more like breathing. The red mass became solid and formed the texture of feathers and all at once a terrible rush of wind as the phoenix reared its mighty head, spread its wings and was gone.