This is a piece my 15 year old son handed me this morning.  I don't do a lot of writing with the children, it is not an area I am comfortable with teaching.  But I have been asking him to give me a piece about a page long each two weeks in varying formats.  He hasn't yet fixed up his  spelling and punctuation errors, but I think he did a good job for a reluctant writer. 

1666

Alas, the sky is lit with flames. Smoke lingers in my nostrils, leaving a foul taste on my tongue. The horizon is hazy, hidden by thick cloud blackened because of the ash. London is burning. Babes cry, the faint sound of water sloshing in buckets echoes around my room. Across the river buildings are being ravaged by a ferocious fire. The wind blows the smoke across to us, billowing up into huge clouds reflecting the hellish atmosphere below them.

Our city is being destroyed. It’s peoples are in pandemonium, many are left homeless carrying their most valued possessions on their backs. Many cripples didn’t make it from the flames, as they fell over and got crushed by the ensuing crowds, those who survived the stampede certainly did not survive the flames.

Is this the judgment of God? First we are plundered by the plague, two hundred thousand dead. Now this great fire is leaving our city in ashes. Now London bridge is alight, it’s timbers buried in fire fall into the water. Not even our grand river can stop this frenzy. Wardens and able-bodied civilians rush to and fro with water buckets to try and suppress the fire. It looks as though their efforts are in vain as the flames roar with great anger.  The wind blows burning embers into the air spreading the fire further, setting off smaller fires which will soon add to the raging monster full of wrath.

Will this hell end?

A few days later…

The fire has left.

Its mark has not.

Smoke still lingers, it blows with the wind against my face and its scent catches in my hair. Our once fine city is nothing but ashes. London, once capitol of the world now left in destruction. It will take many years to rebuild our city to a shade of it’s former glory. The rich are mixed in with the poor, nothing distinguishes them from each other. For all have been made poor, our only possession is poverty. Our grand buildings have been razed to the ground. The stench of burnt animals caught by the flames is the dominant smell, and it is repulsive. It has caused the contents of my stomach to leave through the doorway of my mouth.

From one small ember, to a raging fire. From a grand city now nothing but ashes. Once center of the world, now no more important than the soil upon it once stood. Once England’s glory, now a mere tragedy.