He strikes a match, lets it burn, swings his wrist and snaps it to make the head die in a puff of pitiful smoke. It wasn't even enough to survive for two seconds in the scented air of the room. It smelled like lavender. Now it smells like burnt lavender.
He flicks the match, it strikes the wall, leaves a dusty black mark and drops into the garbage bin. The bin is full of crumpled and ripped papers that the girl has given up on. Half scenes, short scenes, single sentences and full exposition mar the once smooth and pretty paper. Failed words and writing, a disease on the sheets that never asked for anything but to be useful. They aren't useful. She made them useless. A word was wrong, it gets scratched out, a sentence is wrong it gets scribbled into oblivion. But what if it is wrong? All of it. The very core reasoning of the original thought that sparked to life a match in her mind that burns bright until it reaches her pen and then it fizzles.
She can't finish. She goes and goes, writes and writes and breathes life into people and worlds. They grow in her head, a forest, spreading wide and reaching high. Then a flame starts at the corner and she stops. She can't save it. It's the biggest moment when all is supposed to explode in a beautiful flash of acceleration. It stops. She closes her eyes and the forest withers into darkness. She puts her pen down and slides the notebook into her desk, where seven others sit, half full, full full, never finished.
He lights a match, he lets it burn. He lets the flame engulf his hand. It doesn't hurt. He's a devil. It turns black as it feeds on something not there, that it can never completely consume.
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