After Color Media Kit

Excerpt from "White Fire"(Prologue)

The year 2025, later known as 4 ACL

The procession started at Ponce de Leon and continued down Boulevard towards Grant Park. Those who came for the march did not come empty-handed. They held their treasures close, just as the prophet said they would.

The musicians that led the way sounded like a New Orleans funeral march. The press watched from across the street, filming and taking pictures. The marchers paid no attention. To them, they were nothing but carrion birds, feasting on death.

No one—not the photographers or the marchers—saw the woman at the edge of the park, hiding behind the rose bushes. She watched and waited. She was very hot, parched even, but she dared not waste a drop of the water in her thermos on herself.

The prophet walked behind the musicians, dressed in a black robe with a printed black-and-white African-inspired prayer shawl around his neck. In one hand he carried a large Bible, in the other hand a walking cane with a zebra head. His entourage of disciples followed behind him. Like the prophet, many of the older men had walking canes; the women all carried black Bibles. The entourage varied in age from elderly to young. Their shaved heads, wet with sweat, glistened in the sun.

One man stood out from the rest. His hair was braided, not shaved. He carried a folded, brightly colored cloth item in his hands.

They began to sing. It was the old Christian hymn “Is Your All on the Altar?” and the musicians in the procession picked up the tune.

"You have longed for sweet peace,
And for faith to increase,
And have earnestly, fervently prayed;
But you cannot have rest,
Or be perfectly blest,
Until all on the altar is laid."

When they arrived at the park, some of the disciples had already started a small white fire. A slight breeze caused the flames to dance to the hymn. The prophet continued his song, revising sections to suit the occasion:

"Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
Your heart does the old world control
You can only be blest,
And have peace and sweet rest,
As you yield Him everything you adore."

Then abruptly, the prophet raised his right hand. The music stopped. He gave the large Bible to the younger man slightly behind him and then faced the crowd. The march seemed to have exhausted him. He leaned on his cane as he spoke.

"My faithful friends and followers. We all knew it would one day come to this. We have a charge to keep. For years we prayed for the rain of cleansing. We begged for a sign. But no sign was given except the sign of the ninth plague that God gave the children of Egypt when they refused to let his people go." He raised his cane in the air as if he was Moses about to strike the sky. "Darkness! Darkness! Darkness! The only sign we’ve received from on high."

It was a hot evening in July. Just about everyone was sweating and uncomfortable, but no one could take their eyes off the prophet. They all shouted, "Amen!"

The woman watching from the bushes couldn’t see everything, but she could make out the arm of the leader as he pointed his cane. A guitar player, one of the musicians who had led the march, stepped forward. He stood near the flames, holding his instrument, painted for him by a famous artist when color ruled the world. He strummed and sang a short, mournful tune about things lost. When he finished, he stared at the fire for what seemed like a 13 

long time, then he took the guitar strap from around his neck; he mumbled as if he was saying a silent prayer then he cast his instrument into the flames. The flames began to lick the guitar as if the fire was a hungry beast, they heard cracking sounds as if the beast was chewing.