Coal Fire
There is no time to love a hot coal fire, except in the dark of a wet December night. Each shovelful of carbonised ferns is haphazardly sprinkled onto the head of an already glowing bed of embers. Ebony gems roll to find their place in between the flaming crevices, or scuttle off the grate onto the red tile floor, landing with a clatter, stopping at the edge of a ripple of velvet ash.
It's a dirty business from start to finish. Slag smoke clings to clothes, it creeps into the fur of dogs, and lingers on skin. But it is not as black as the face of the miner who digs it from the pit, who coughs it up, spits it out like phlegm. Stained, creased hands shovel piles into stud sealed boxes like trunks on wheels, pushed through tunnels of steel and rock.
Together they emerge from the halcyon bowels of industry, climbing upwards in noisy lifts or conveyor belts. One is delivered in a bag, while the other arrives in a box. Both end as waste, consumed by greed and obsolescence.
Utility is lost, no longer the desired fuel to fire trains, or ships, or power plants. Mr. Wells' words, now undone, are in reverse. Our civilisation, it is not founded on coal, but rather something darker, a progress much worse.
