Cold Fire

Fire or ice… which would I choose? Not that it matters, but it’s funny you ask for my opinion: fate has already chosen for me.

Fire is impulsive. Infectious. Insatiable. It grows and grows until it consumes everything but itself and in that moment when fire is at its peak, it recognizes its mistake. In trying to become bigger than itself, it has killed itself.

Ice is strong. Structured. Silent. It remains as it has been and will be. Each crystal knows its place and stays where it is needed. A thousand men can trample it a thousand times over, yet it does not break until—in an instant—it shatters...

Fire or ice? Which would I choose?

Ever since I was a child, I knew the danger of the world. I recognized it in the wild of the winter storms and the scorch of the summer’s heat. I saw it in the wolves roaming free in the forests and the rats scurrying through the city streets. I have seen it from miles away as the cannons sang their chorus of death and in the trenches as men roared their prayers to an empty sky.

This was no place for passion or desire. A calculated mind was critical to my survival. Did it make me distant? Cold? Unforgiving? Perhaps, but that was what I needed to be. I did not ask to become what I am; I hardly had a choice in the matter.

Perhaps that is why I find your question so amusing: I’ve never been given this choice before. Fire or ice?

I would choose fire. Unpredictable, passionate, and wild—nothing like me.

I choose fire.