Burn, Baby, Burn.

****A small town nestled within the hills of a lush green landscape, peppered with the majesty of the rose and the scent of the lavender bush. The wind is fresh and sweet, the soil always rich and moist, the trees always lush and full of delicious fruits. But as fresh as the wind is, it is always cold. The soil holds onto more secrets buried within it's depths than from the depths of a single human soul, rotting secrets that once walked as the vessel of one such soul. The trees have killed children who topple from the branches and snagged travelers, pulling them from their horses so they fall and break their bones upon the ground. The fruit is so good as to become the home for all variety of wriggling thing and growing insect known to man. And the sweetest fruits poison most who taste them.

Today in town a pyre has been erected and the good townsfolk have gathered about it carrying the pitchfork and burning torch, useful tools when applied in the field and the dark. In the middle of the pyre a woman is bound to an upright pole, and she watches as her fellow men cover the wood at her feet with oil from their lanterns and paper from their studies, useful tools when applied in the home. The crowd screams for the destruction of evil from their midsts, and hug their children close to watch them burn the evil one. Her ghost will haunt their sleep once the flesh has melted and peeled from her. How evil she is! More wood! More oil!

The crowd rants and raves, spills the darkness inside upon her and all others like her. They spit at her. Her friends wave their fists at her. Many don't know exactly what's going on and simply do the same. She is evil, they have been told, let her burn!

Venkman is one of those who is silent and glum, however, and there are others. Few, for some just decided to follow the crowd anyway, takes away the confusion and the silence. Makes them feel good. Venkman walks to the front of the crowd with his hnds linked behind his back, his long coat blowing in the sweet, chilly breeze, the sun reflecting of his sunglasses. He looks out of place amongst the others dressed in the clothes of old, but they don't seem to notice him or his strange clothes.

"So it's come to this then, *sigh*..." he addresses the woman bound before him as the crowd screams for her skin to blister and her bones to blacken and split, "...it's unfortunate, bound to happen I suppose, but all the same unfortunate". A man drops a bundle of wood onto the pyre right at Venkman's feet and then runs off through the crowd to get more.

"So, woman, shall ye be reborn? Shall a pheonix arise from the ashes or will you perish forever? You can't rock the boat it seems *sigh*, for those traveling on the river styx don't like being splashed with those dark waters, for it stains their white robes. They want to arive at Hades in the purest of white, clean, untouched. Maybe the robes help them to forget how grey it is there". The sky begins to grow darker as the horizon bleeds and black, swollen clouds start to swallow the sky.

"It won't rain on their party..", Venkman says, looking at the sky "...it can't. They simply won't allow it *he sneers*....perhaps you made it rain to often?! Hmmm?" The torchbearers are bought forward.

"Suppose I should get used to this shouldn't I...." looks around at the wood as it glistens with oil, which looks like blood in the sunset, "...only a matter of time before I'm here again...perhaps where you are now". Venkman looks the woman straight in the eyes and removes his glasses, his eyes are sorrowful. "This needs to be done....for them...after all, practising as you did....it was quite a pagan thing, close to nature as it was though". Venkman gestures for the torchbearers to stop with a wave of his hand and finally the angry crowd stops there taunts and insults, their spitting and crying, their calls of "witch" and "devil" to watch as he climbs the pyre and kisses the woman on the lips.

"Seeya SAM....." he whispers in her ear. And then climbs down and walks away as the torches are thrown. As he walks off he looks at the ground, his shoulders are hunched, his step slow. He passes one, pauses, sizes him up and ever so briefly looking the stranger in the eyes questioningly before continuing on into the bloody horizon, a happy crowd with faces dancing in the glow of the fire behind him.