Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

No one knew how the fire started. A clerk briefly became famous by claiming a mysterious stranger had flicked a cigarette into a waste paper bin in his office. His face appeared everywhere until newspaper editors realised how inconsistent his story was. But that is a detail. By the time the fire came to public attention, it had razed a small town.
     
Enthusiasts appeared on television to give explanations that only an educated few understood. But everyone agreed the fire was unusual. No one had called for help, which was why the town had been destroyed without anyone realising. Indeed, the alarm was only raised when citizens of a nearby industrial city smelt acrid smoke one Friday morning.

Another strange thing was that the fire could not be put out. Trucks with journalists hanging out travelled alongside a fleet of fire engines to the parameters of the blaze. Flames too thick to see through glowed at their base. Hundreds of hoses were unrolled and thousands of gallons of water pumped out but the inferno was enchanted. Flames rocked and crackled regardless of water and autumnal wind. Spectators pointed in horror at dark shadows deep within, where the remnants of the town were worn down and chewed to nothingness.

Crowds grew on the edge of the flames, now swelled by a line of survivors, who appeared out of nowhere. Five minutes later, the images were broadcast around the world and within an hour, pictures of the fire were being distributed amongst Greek Orthodox monks who lived alone on a deserted island. Aid and advice was sent from every country. Aeroplanes were rigged with high pressure water bombs; a multitude of special chemicals developed and a dozen other stratagems tried that made everyone open their eyes wide at their inventive brilliance. None succeeded in putting out the flames.

After a time, the blaze started changing colour randomly. The brave ignored the dangers to take a closer look. They returned with vivid descriptions. It’s like staring into an abyss, they said, that has taken the form of a monster ten feet tall. And the monster, its face shifting and eyes black, stared right back.

Then something extraordinary happened. On a whim, the fire suddenly raged north, towards the industrial city. The former inhabitants of the town scuttled over the charred remains of their homes, kicking soot in wonder, their clothes darkening. They scurried like ants, this way and that.

Newspaper reporters returned a short time later, to follow up the story. The town immediately became a renewed focus of worldwide attention. Its inhabitants had re-built and re-written everything. But there was something incomprehensible about the new things. Buildings contained bizarre angles and the games people played, the books they read and the clothes they wore were so unlike anything that had existed before that someone instantly thought to start a business selling pictures of them. It was as if that quaint town had been colonised by Martians. Even their accents seemed different, somehow. Observers scratched their heads and edged away after listening to them.

A series of incredible schemes were set in motion to stop the fire reaching the city. A hole a mile deep was dug in front of it by immense machines, fleets of aeroplanes rocked the sky and the wildest, most elaborate fancies became reality.  But the inferno rolled straight over the hole. People had been warned of the impending disaster this time and the majority escaped, carrying what they could and not daring to pick up what they dropped, A few chose to stay behind and were never seen again.

The city was consumed faster than the town; the flames had become more efficient. People watching the rage became hysterical and danced around trees singing spontaneously invented songs. Others laughed wildly but could not be heard over the burning. Yet despite that, the air was very cold. There did not seem any point saving anything. Refugees lost hope and threw in the treasure they had so carefully saved.

Everything was destroyed and the fire moved on. Great numbers of people descended on the wreckage to rebuild the metropolis like the others before them. Curious spectators stayed to watch but when questioned afterwards, could not describe what had happened. All that was certain was the result: the very soil of the city had been terraformed using material salvaged from abandoned factories. Spectators from old villages had to invent new words to describe it.

The fire continued its dreadful path, devouring and growing all the time. It reduced even memory to ashes, only for everything to be constantly re-built in the most bewildering forms. Nothing was sturdy enough to survive and the most ancient, venerable things were profaned and melted down. Manic laughter became omnipresent and people roiled their eyes and danced when the fire approached. Every hamlet was intimately transformed, the cry of ‘creative self-destruction’ was called out throughout the land and things transformed with such an explosive effusion of colour and sound, exotic yet somehow horrifying, that it was almost impossible to describe.