LATE ENTRY Fireside by Nick Trussler

The fire roared and cracked as the old man poked it absentmindedly. He coughed and spat a dark spittle of phlegm onto the hearth. He smoked too much. People said it was good for your health, cleared the lungs and body of ill humours but he had seen enough men coughing, being blinded by the smoke on a far distant battlefield, to know that it was nonsense. Still, out of habit, his hand reached his tobacco pouch. Empty. It had been empty for a long time now as had his belly. He poked the fire some more. Each stab into the crackling wood was replayed in his mind as some enemy now long dead, but who still returned nightly to haunt his dreams. He would not sleep tonight. It was not just the hunger keeping him awake. All the glory had gone, if indeed there had ever been any. And now he just sat here, a shell of who he used to be. He sighed. He could not even remember what he had looked like in his youth. He could not afford to be painted, like some gentleman. Not even a rough sketch of him was ever made. It was all vanity anyway.

The fires of hell would come for him, he knew, to punish him for all his wickedness in youth. He had laughed in the face of the evangelical then, but now he knew he was damned. He could face the devil fighting but what was the point? In a way he welcomed death. There was nothing for him here anymore. He poked the fire more vigorously now, each strike sending a wave of sparks that grew perilously close to catching his clothes on fire. He grinned and poked some more.

Later as the hours of night slowly drew back and let dark blue morning slowly reveal itself the fire had already spread to the lower part of the house. From a fluttering ember landing on a table cloth it had grown and roared into life as it ate the possessions of one person’s life.

Now the smoke choked the night air.

The old man lay in bed and did not open his eyes. Hell had come for him at last. As the smoke filled his lungs, he welcomed the pain. Breathing deeply, trying to hold the coughs that were now ravishing his chest he wore a sardonic grin. Let the devil come, he thought, let the devil come.