Synopsis

Pyromania - From pyro- "fire" + mania "madness, frenzy." The propensity leading an insane person to accomplish their purpose by burning, has been considered to merit particular notice, and to constitute a variety of monomania.

Prologue

A frazzled mother eagle; who had been circling the top of the Pledge mountains, eventually detected a narrow ledge from where she could safely spy down at the peculiar bright yellow noisy thing, which seemed to have been responsible for the crumbling of the awkward stone cradle she had in her wisdom chosen to nest. Seven hundred meters up and far away from the foot of the mountain. The frantic calling-out of her two ravenous children had ceased instantly - the moment their long descent down to earth ended, and she turned her head, fighting off the bright eastern light, to zoom-in for any movement down below. Each of her babies; when their roughly stacked shelter had tumbled over the edge, instinctively gripped on to as many sticks; following their frantic somersaulting, as their small claws could gather - all during a merciless pluck from breakfast, on the high crevice. She swapped, and let the still-spooked rabbit tire itself out more in her left machine-like claw, wondering if her children, had still been hungry. A second massive tremor which had shaken the mountain was thundering up in her direction and warned that the rabbit; now having surrendered to a limp act on the stage of death, as a desperate plea for mercy, was not number one on her list of priorities. Releasing her left claw, she darted a last look at the bloodied fur-ball, who wasn't quite sure how to make peace with its new habitat halfway up to heaven, and bolted gratefully for the full ten meters of a lower ledge that it had miraculously hopped onto, then skidded to a slippery halt as it froze when it realised that there was no way down. The distraught mother swooped and landed next to the jumble of various sized sticks and down feathers, then burnt her large eyes, up and down at the humming yellow monster, unsure how to strategise and exact her revenge on it. In the far distance, she barely made out her regular visitors' small silhouettes. They again came and would appreciate from afar, the usual breakfast ritual. She noticed that the smallest - when tragedy struck - and who'd turn on heels and bolted - screaming - was still arrowing across the tall dry grass away from the mountain. The other two short silhouettes turned away and disappeared into the gleaming tall grass, lit up by the blinding morning sun. After hopping over to where her three regular visitors had planted themselves earlier, the distraught mother bird studied the remains of a broken walking stick. It seemed to her that the walking stick - now snapped in half - was no match for the enormous yellow monster. Ten minutes later while scanning the dusty road from high above, she was surprised to see the small creature was still kicking up dust, heading towards the main road. At ten o'clock that night the lonely mother bird peered down from the blackness on top of the mountain at what seemed to be a bright orange sunrise. But she wasn't certain why it was limited only to the centre of town. The noisy yellow machines never came back; well not that year - that was.

The following winter the three small silhouettes arrived back around the same time as an even bigger yellow monster's growl scaled the side of the mountain. Death stuck again, there was a broken stick again, and as the mother eagle and her husband waited - that night - they were not disappointed. That night, once more the sun rose over town. This time accompanied by a blinding flash that burnt...