Flames

A long time ago while serving in the air force in the West Indies, an acquaintance traveled to a small village in the interior of the island where he found a community celebration under way.

He was drunk and insulted one of the locals who was running a concession stand. There were words. My acquaintance lost his temper and set their celebration structures aflame, burning everything to the ground.

The island didn’t have a jail. They only had a federal prison. The fellow in question was quickly tried and sentenced to prison time, with the condition that the base commander’s words could bail him out. But while there he shared a cell with an individual doing life for murder.

The fellow told me that eventually the base commander, bird colonel came to see about him and the two of them met in a conference room. When they were finished he heard the colonial tell the prison officials to let him rot.

A month later he was released to the air force and then court marshaled, and then did some time in the air force stockade before paying restitution for the damage he’d done to the town.

That was his experience with flames.

<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/flames/”>Flames</a&gt;

 

6 thoughts on “Flames”

  1. It would be nice to see this have some kind of an ending note to this. Like, did your friend learn anything here or gain in any way from this sad affair? The base commander evidently didn’t think much of him, but he was a serious jerk to get drunk and set someone’s booth on fire.

    Since you haven’t put any tags or categories on this post, I’m not sure if this is fact or fiction, but I assume it’s fact. Really, tags and categories will help you in the long run; tey’re like a filing system. Also, without them your posts won’t be seen by very many people other than those who follow the Daily Prompt. you’re allowed up to fifteen.

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  2. Scott says:

    I don’t when know I started Scott’s Place when it was called a different name. I’m not very well organized. My wife is in the early states of Alzheimer’s and the distractions until recently have been waiting in line. We’ve been married 54 years and so she ALWAYS comes first. She had two heart attacks in March 2016 and I slept on a chair in her room for 27 days until I could bring her home. I did everything around here but her personal hygiene until last month when she started fixing lunch. Then she took on dinner, then breakfast and this week she took on theEa dishes.

    She walks a fine line. Easily rattled. No TV. No radio, No politics. I’ve been an amateur radio operator for 27 years, but I haven’t had the station on more than 15 minutes this year.

    I have two other sites under construction: which is totally ham radio related. The other is called FICTION. I think qncw is turned off and will remain so until I can get some details figured out. I’m 79 and some of this stuff is difficult for me to understand. I work on them at night when I can’t sleep.

    My “reason for this site” hasn’t changed because I’ve been running pillar to post for a year. Until this month I haven’t had time to truly finish anything in one setting.

    End Of Rant.

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  4. Scott says:

    It taught him to respect things he didn’t understand. This carnival celebration was the product of people working in the cane fields and cutting grass, raising a family on one dollar per day.

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