A Higher Fire

Jaslene was an infamous Poet. This story is about her winning.

Her story started in a faraway land, riddled with poverty and sinning.

Rahkety, her ancestral mother, brought wealth to their family. She was wise and witty.

So, one might say, with confusion and dismay, “How did she end up in a cursed city?”

Her birth mother’s name is Zuri. She brought the curse to their lineage.

Zuri was just as wise as Rahkety, but often was not sure of it.

She wanted to be admired by every man she desired, but being a smart woman made it challenging.

She convinced herself no familial wealth was worth the joy and pain she was balancing.

A handsome man by the name of Beau,

was a fallen god and a charming goof.

Zuri saw his face and heart rate shot through the roof.

He was intimated by intellect, so she was not the kind of woman he would normally choose.

She wanted his heart,

so, she meets with a witch,

who offered her beauty for the family wit.

Zuri believed it was an exchange well spent, but she would pay the price to circumvent.

Just as she intended, she got Beau’s attention, cretin and pretty he loved her.

He described her like an artifact, precious and delicate, a wonder.

Then, Beau met Amora and she got more than his attention.

A healing goddess, Amora won his affection, and Beau became a man of commitment.

This sent hate through Zuri’s heart,

and it spread quicker than an infection.

She wept and wept because she had to accept,

that she was no longer Beau’s prized possession.

Jealousy possessed her aura.

“I’ll take her out!” Zuri would shout.

So, one night she strikes at Amora,

and was never convicted with doubt.

One thing about a healing goddess, she is poised, gracious, and modest.

Amora did not strike Zuri back.

Instead, she tapped into her divine mind,

and said these words with tact,

“Zuri, you are a descendant of Rahkety, and your actions have taken me aback.

The knowledgeable cloth that you are cut from and yet, you have left blood on my back?

I come from a line of maturity so, physically I will not attack,

but from this day forth, I open a port that will ensure generational lack.

You and your seeds will suffer indeed,

poverty will not cut you slack.”

Thus, the deed was done by the rising of the new morning sun,

And that, was that, on that.

Now there’s turmoil and strife in Zuri’s life and her mindset is toxic.

The law makers of the city instruct her to pack her boxes.

Zuri is commanded to flee, because she,

could no longer comprehend celestial logic.

Nearby cities are aware of Zuri’s reputation,

and will not extend lodging to a cursed soul filled with hatred.

She eventually settles and adopts a state of anguish,

mates with a fool, and this is where Jaslene’s picture gets painted.

They say two negatives make a positive.

The seed of a fool, planted in a cursed womb, created a gifted prophetess.

Jaslene has divine dreams and would scribe them so evocative,

but poverty breeds barren seeds, and the people in the town have dead faith in her cosmic sense.

This made Jaslene provocative and greed became her prerogative.

She knew she was to share any fiscal gain her poetry profited,

but because she had no support from her cohorts,

she would do the total opposite.

One-night Jaslene had a dream that puzzled her deeply.

She saw a woman strike a goddess and get cursed.

She usually did not question the dreams she had,

but this one kept getting worse.

Instead of writing her poetry to explain what she was seeing,

she told her mother and Zuri mocked Jaslene’s dreaming.

“I thought you were a divine scribe, my daughter, a pen with power of redeeming.

Yet, here you are, supposed to be the product of stars,

you’ve had a dream and can’t comprehend the meaning?”

Zuri was harsh and demeaning,

because she knew what her daughter was seeing.

Zuri feared if her daughter knew the truth,

it would prove that she was a blessed being.

And the people would love Jaslene more than Zuri,

because they knew Zuri’s truth.

The people knew Zuri never told Jaslene,

and that would mean the divine realm brought Jaslene proof.

Trusting her mom would not stir her wrong,

Jaslene’s confidence started to get hazy.

Soon enough depression set in and made Jaslene lazy.

She kept having the dream repeatedly and eventually went crazy.

“She’s lost her sound mind!” Zuri explained to the people of the town.

Without a second thought, the royal court ordered Jaslene be sent to an infamous corrective house.

Jaslene tells the overseers she is a poetic dreamer, but they laugh and mock her as a poet.

“You were a fraud all along, Jaslene, and now everyone knows it!”

Two decades pass and Jaslene is still living at the corrective house.

Still having the dream, still explaining the theme, but still no hopes of getting out.

Aiden, the pyromaniac, is the last person to cross her mind for help,

but Aiden plays with fire, to uncover satire, as quiet as it’s kept.

“I believe you Jaslene.” He said so faintly that Jaslene almost did not hear him.

She was relieved to know, he believed her so, but was a little hesitant to get near him.

Suddenly, she had a moment of humbling and practicality,

“If they think I’m crazy and I know I’m not, then Aiden may be a similar casualty.”

He instructs her to go to a vacant building but does not say more than that.

He also tells her how to escape the corrective house, “There’s a poorly constructed door ‘round back.

It cannot withstand high temperatures, so, take my favorite match,

and strike it when the guards are sleeping and completely burn the latch.”

“What do you want for all of this?

You cannot want to help me for free?”

Aiden responded without a second thought,

“Just give me your beautiful poetry.”

That night, Jaslene writes the most heartfelt “thank you”, and slid it under Aiden’s door.

She burnt the latch with Aiden’s match and escaped to go explore.

She found the place Aiden explained and to her great surprise,

the building was locked and required a special key to get inside.

She studied the lock and fell to her knees,

because she realized she recognized the key she would need.

A key she had always seen as a child and Zuri had it.

So, she made her way back to her mother’s palace.

When Zuri saw her daughter in the flesh she screamed,

but the shock went away when she saw what she was holding.

They wrestled and tussled, but old age caught up to Zuri,

and Jaslene was the victor of the scuffle.

Jaslene goes back to the building, unlocks it, it’s vacant.

She wonders why Aiden would send her there.

She scavenges and finds a little black book and a box adorned with pony hair.

She opens the box and bands of money fall out, enough to make her a millionaire!

“But how is this going to help with my dream!” Jaslene said with frustration and great despair.

She convinces herself that Aiden tricked her, or maybe he rewarded her?

She really was not sure, so she headed to the corrective house,

and was met with a sinister grin from Aiden.

At this point, Jaslene was agitated, and was convinced that Aiden was the spawn of Satan.

“WHAT IS THIS BOOK AND WHAT IS THE MONEY?! YOU BETTER START TALKING NOW!

I THANKED YOU WITH MY POETRY, AIDEN, AND MY DREAM IS STILL NOT FIGURED OUT!

IF THIS WAS SOME SICK WAY FOR YOU TO GET RICH, YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY BE CRAZY!

A DERANGED, TRICKSTER, FIRE-MAN, WHO’S JUST EXTREMELY LAZY!”

Aiden laughed and chuckled,

and was forgiving of her attack.

Aiden told her what to do with the money,

and the book that was little and black.

“I’m sorry you traveled all this way, but now you need to go back,

to the location you just came from and be patient and relaxed.

When The Wise One shows, hand her the money and do not hesitate.

That book will end a family curse, but The Wise One must activate,

the little black book you found. The dreams you had from Heaven’s gates,

has worried you for so long to free you from your mother’s fate.”

Jaslene went back to the building and waited for seven days.

While she waited, she decided to take some money for her pain.

“I can’t believe my mother knew and wouldn’t admit to her wicked ways.”

And as she cried and released the hurt inside, suddenly, The Wise One came.

The Wise One asked for the money and the book,

but was immediately filled with rage.

“Jaslene your greed has cost you freedom, you must enjoy being enslaved,

to poverty and people who deny your gifts. I instruct you, go away!”

Jaslene pleaded and tried to offer the money that she had selfishly pocketed.

She even tried to repent, in the moment, for never sharing money her poetry profited.

The wise one was unaffected, and Jaslene went back to live with her mother.

Zuri welcomed her with laughter and made her admit that she was no more special than the others.

Zuri felt defeated, she didn’t know who to trust anymore.

She wondered why she was blessed with poetry and why her mother could not accept wisdom and wealth left by Rahkety.

She wondered why the Gods planted her in poverty knowing that lack would make her greedy.

She blamed herself repeatedly and felt sorrow that her mother was so needy.

She wondered why Amora did not just punish Zuri, but also her seedling.

She even had days where she cursed the divine because she was still dreaming.

However, this time, the dreams were showing her signs that she would still break the curse.

Jaslene was low on faith, so rejected her visions and found more comfort in her hurt.

One day, she was out in a field,

and a group of men approached her.

“Are you Jaslene the divine poet?”

“Who’s asking?” she said, afraid they would heckle and broach her.

“The Wise One sent us out to find you,

and we have been searching for you for days.

Now that we have found you,

please Jaslene, follow us. Come this way.”

Jaslene put up a fight of words and inquisition.

She required that every man in her presence show proof of the positions,

they held in relation to the wise one, and one by one they revealed,

that they were trusted clergy of The Wise One and this had Jaslene thrilled.

She followed the men back to the building and was instructed to be patient.

After seven days of waiting, The Wise One showed up with Aiden.

The Wise One explained to Jaslene that the poetry she wrote to thank him,

actually, mended his broken heart and cured him of being so anxious.

“Aiden, if you knew The Wise One, why didn’t you just say it?”

Aiden grinned his sinister grin and started fire for his explanation.

“The Wise One is my mother, but she’s the cause of my broken heart.

She has a wealth of knowledge, but she never understood my art.

So, when you trusted my fire, it gave me a reason to live.

My mother told me she knows your heart is good despite the bad you did.”

To see if Jaslene was truly pure, The Wise One asked for the money she withheld.

Jaslene gave her the funds, and The Wise One restored the family wealth,

by activating the little black book that had dormant spells.

From that day forth, Jaslene shared the riches her poetry produced,

and her and all her descendants lived well.