The Crown of Fire

There was once a boy who, upon becoming a young man, was visited by an angel. He had only recently become a man, when sitting in the grass beneath a tree one afternoon smoking his pipe, he was consumed by a marvelous vision. All at once, he found himself enthroned in the flaming gold of ecstasy, every nerve blazing with untold bliss, and upon his head invisible hands placed a crown of fire. These sensations were extreme, and yet accompanied by a perfect mental clarity, an unprecedented stillness of the mind. And then before him appeared a shining red angel adorned in golden armor, who spoke with a great voice that boomed like a bell in the void.

 “You have been Chosen,” said the angel. “Chosen to be a Champion of the Gods, a Destroyer of Serpents. This is the Destiny you must fulfill.”

When the angel finished speaking, it vanished. As the crown of fire was removed from the young man's head, his sense of golden ecstasy subsided.

For a whole day the young man sat beneath the tree, astonished by the prophetic vision. As he gradually regained his senses and began to process what he had seen, he was filled with an immense excitement. He had been Chosen, Chosen by the Gods. What could be better? His joy soon turned to pride as he contemplated the rarity of his vision. He replayed the moment in his imagination over and over, trying to recreate the sense of ecstasy, the feeling of the crown of fire on his head. For several more days he did nothing but dream about it, sitting there beneath the tree, basking in the prophecy.

***

Whenever anyone walked by, the young man hailed them and called them over to his spot beneath the tree. He would chat with them a little bit, gradually leading the conversation to the topic of his vision. Then he would describe it to them in dramatic language. Many people laughed and told him he was crazy. These people did not bother the young man, who understood they were merely jealous of him. Others became embarrassed as if he had told them something obscene. But a rare few were impressed by his story, some of them so much so that they would come back day after day to hear it told again and again, and they would bring him small gifts of bread and fruit.

Eventually, the young man had enough followers, bringing him enough food and other gifts, that he could have lived beneath the tree without ever having to leave or do any work other than tell his story. But he was so consumed by the memory of his vision that he only wanted to dream about it, talk about it, constantly wash himself in the glory of it. He ate less and less. He barely slept. By slow degrees, he wasted away beneath the tree, until eventually he expired.

His followers were superstitious and did not allow anyone to bury him or touch his body. After his vision, he never left that spot beneath the tree, and now in death he would remain there too. Time passed. The elements did their work on the young man's body. At long last, nothing but a skeleton remained, stripped of all flesh and tissue. By this time his followers had drifted away. There was no one to guard the body anymore. Occasionally curious people came by to look at the bones – they had heard rumors about the young man.

***

Later some would claim to have seen where the crown of fire had scorched a black ring around his skull.

Orion’s Belt takes pleasure in bringing to you this haunting, philosophical story about fatalism and fanatical devotion by the talented New Yorker Reuben Dendinger.

Reuben Dendinger is a writer and educator based in New York. His writing has appeared in Anti-Capital and The Baffler. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and their two cats.