The Red Monologue

The bitter night Avah was killed the whole town was out celebrating. The Spring Festival was an annual affair and only the most isolated of persons would have not been there. It was a festival meticulously planned out by those intrigued in such matters and each detail was carried out to exact perfection. The Humphrey family would perform a skit each year at exactly six-thirty, the mayor would grace the audience with a well-planned speech at six-forty-five. At seven o’clock the potluck dessert would be brought out by the women and then once a half hour had passed, enough time for the people to converse with each other, the festival games would begin. These games, which proceeded to be the same every year included the two-legged race, the baking
No one in this town is illiterate.”
His reputation worsened. The townspeople were worried for him, they tried to help, but that dark streak just wouldn’t be scrubbed out of him no matter how hard they tried, or how many conversations they had with him about his behaviour.
That night the townspeople wondered why they had decided to leave Leo in charge of the fireworks. “Perhaps,” they thought, “they had wanted to give him a chance to prove himself, to show them that he truly wasn’t as malicious as they thought. They were being gracious.” But too late did they realize the mistake they had made. In minutes the smoke got darker and thicker and clouded up the lights hanging from the branches of the perfectly pruned trees. The thrushes who had made their home in these trees who had, this whole time been whistling a merry tune, mimicking the laughter of the people abruptly stopped their song as the smoke passed through their sculpted bodies. The stench overpowered the sweet smells of the baked goods lined up in a flawless procession to be judged and a winner named. The ghostly fumes were driven into the delicate lungs and the stainless eyes of the townspeople. The tendrils of the smoke hugged themselves to their warm bodies and seemed to whisper into their ears as it passed by. For only a moment the happiness of the townspeople wavered. It was just a flicker though, a flicker of silence, of darkness, like a broken lightbulb giving its last dying
They now stood like stone statute, their chastisement swallowed leaving a bitter taste. They watched the spitting flames feasting upon the splintered wood with unblinking eyes. Once the shock had worn off, the townspeople’s common sense returned. They divided themselves up, half of them rushed to the water tank to dowse the flames while the other half went in search of Leo, the boy who had caused so much trouble, and ruined their festive night. They fanned out like a well-coordinated army hunting all throughout the town. Upon arriving at its outskirts, where the Spring Festival had taken place they found him. His clothes were covered in soot and his body was contaminated with bright red blisters and burns. He was kneeling on the grass, crouched over, and coughing with an unrestrained ferocity that was only needed to dispel the smoke that his lungs had inhaled. Upon seeing the cowardly figure, the townspeople pulled him up from his kneeling position and tightly gripped his arm dragging him towards the burning house and to certain