Mount Fume

They approached Mount Fume across a dismal plain of grass tussock and muddy patch. So, the metallic armour boots of the Blue Knight and the lower edge of the Diamond became muddy also. One carried the other when they got tired and from time to time the BK would say things like, ‘I see it in my sleep,’ but nobody really understood. They ate the crumbly food cakes that they had been given by the woman in the forest office.

Once they dropped the burden and were attacked by an giant otter, but that was not it. Sometimes they climbed over a boulder when they could have gone around. Were they being followed? I think that they were not. Unless of course the Sorrow Collectors were after the Sadness Container that they carried. Most likely monitoring their movements from a satellite, hired from a nefarious power, and sundry drones with thermal imaging. But probably not, that’s more of an action movie kind of thing. This is more like random madness that floods out of our lives.

The Diamond asked the BK, Tell me then about the contents that we carry.

Well, look at the world about, replied the Blue Knight, In the morning when the world has begun, we know, we feel the weight. When we set out upon the earth in our day-to-day clothes, then we feel it upon our shoulders. Afternoon comes, with its own sweet melancholia. When the sun declines to serve any longer and we must call in the children and animals, then we sense the inevitability. Later we can lose ourself in the arms of sleep, where at last we are safe.

Ceiling collapse and disease, injustice, accident, untruths, the merciless twisting of statistics, badly cooked vegetables (overcooked generally) and cruelties. Just listen to the length of my list, which I cannot avoid. Dismal results, inability to hold tight, mining under, disappoint, droopy moustaches, no smiles, troubled brows everywhere. You know, death and destruction, that sort of thing. All this is contained and must be wrought to nothing by the fires of mount Fume.

Let us move up the mountain to the place of fire, we have throwing into to do. Said the Diamond.

They struggled up the mountain as it got steeper and steeper, until it was more like a cliff, and a cave appeared, with above, on metal with enamel and image of flames with a diagonal not symbol, a sign.

Hard hats and Hi Vis jackets must be worn beyond this point. Don’t look down.

On entering the cave, they found that the wisps of smoke got in their eyes and they cried, which was appropriate in a way. The cave was dark, with electric light to guide, exits here, here, and here. Your closest exit may be behind you, arms crossed on the chute, no high heels.

Eventually they emerged onto a ledge with safety rail and parapet. The caldera of Mt Fume, where, down below, the magma boiled with all the colours except green. There was a tiny bit of blue and green in the flaming occasionally and the majority of the colours were in the spectrum between yellow and red, obviously.

The BK and the diamond lifted the container so that it balanced near the edge and tipped.

A stream of regret and distress flowed, looking dark and unpleasant, out the opening and was disentangled and consumed by the temperature.

Wow, said the BK, I feel a lot lighter. So you should, said the Diamond. Your carton of woe is now empty.