Burning

His name was Clive and with such an interesting name you would imagine a leather glad, enigmatic ladies' man or a slack jawed yokel ogling ladies much too young but Clive rested somewhere in between. His stomach rested a little too far past his belt, he clothes a little too loose to his frame, and the circles around his eyes a little too dark to be mistaken for a healthy man. He was just an every man in every sense of the word.

Clive was all too keen on what he was and his worth upon this Earth. A man of the earth, lower case mind you, his momma would tell him. For earth and dirt were not low things but rather were the things that like sprung from. Without the cool embrace of rich soil to protect, where would the seeds begin to find root? Where would the mighty tree stand firm? Where would the grasses and vegetables that nourish beast and man sortin from? Clive knew his place was one of quiet dignity over glamorous bravado. Clive was a man of Earth.

Come one spring, from soil well tilled by Clive, a son sprouted. A son, who like the trees and vegetation before him, grew well with Clive's engrave. Watered with knowledge and sunned with love from a quiet but hearty family, the son blossomed into well grown stock.

Others were not as lucky though. For with every prize winner, there is loser prized even if by just chance alone. Clive's son had a foil, an opposite birthed and named not too far from himself but raised in such a way as to be considered further than light is said to be from dark. The soils which bore the foil were dry, and cold, and full of hard rocks that cut. The foil was raised mean and alone.

Two men, born unto this world similarly but raised as if one were alien to each other are where this story takes place. Clive and his son Patrick and the foil, Steven.