When People Start Burning Books It Isn't Long Before They Start Burning Each Other

The flames crackled as the orange and yellow glow danced over the faces of the small group of onlookers. Faces of all kinds, belonging to a wild assortment of people from all backgrounds and walks of life, watched the fire Slowly the flames rose higher as more of the bonfire was engulfed, the light filling the darkness and the sound of the burning getting louder.
The crowd cheered when the first flames had licked at the bottom of the pile, when the books had first started to singe and burn. Even I did. We had gathered and started the burning as a release from oppression, from the structure and order that was thrust upon us and that books wanted and demanded. We claimed we could do what we wanted and this was our first act. Pages curled up at the edges as the paper burned, years of knowledge disintegrating into ashes as we watched, dumbfounded by what we thought we had achieved.
Slowly it dawned on me as I watched; what were we burning? It may have stood for order and oppression for us but it was also all we knew. We were destroying ourselves. Our culture, what we stood for, reason, sanity...life.
As we watched the books burn I probably wasn't the only one that thought occurred to as, slowly from the other side of the fire, someone stepped forward. Lighting the end of a long stick brought a tiny spark of flame towards the rest of the crowd. No one seemed able to move as they briefly touched the person next to them. The flames spread quickly over their clothes and they frantically started to try to beat them out with their hands, voice rising to emit desperate screams. No one moved to help but watched mesmerised as if this course of action was meant to happen.
The screams quickly became ear piercing screeches as the person flung themselves to the ground in a fiery ball and we all just watched, numb and devoid of all feeling. The structure we didn't realise we needed had gone and madness quickly took its place.
� Kiandra Riley 2004