(Original Post: August 11, 2016)
As sports enthusiasts across the world have celebrated the opening of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, many local residents have found themselves too distracted with a much more pressing concern to focus on anything directly related to the famed international athletics competition. Specifically, one revolving around an unfortunate event that occurred during the much-lauded “running of the torch” that occurs before the start of every ancient and modern Olympics.
“He dropped the torch while running through our village.” reports Bernardo Gonzaga, resident of a small farming community located along the route run by Olympic athletes to light the torch in Rio de Janiero. “He dropped it right into my wife’s flower garden, and it went up like kindling! We are doing everything we can to keep the fire from spreading further, but it has already destroyed half the village, and the authorities refuse to allow us to throw water on it!”
“Attempting to extinguish the fire from an Olympic torch before the completion of the Olympic games is a sacrilege.” Andre de Santos from the Department of Public Health and Safety for the Brazilian state of Rio de Janiero confirmed to “Eye of Zatara” sources yesterday. “We simply cannot allow such a glaring insult to the 205 countries that have gathered in our good nation to share the spirit of brotherhood, comradery, and freedom that is born from the international competition exemplified in the Olympic games. We have advised Mr. Gonzaga and the other residents of Madeira Queima that they are free to dig trenches, put up sand bags, and take other purely defensive measures to prevent further spread of the Olympic flame, but they are not to use water or any other means to extinguish the fires until the conclusion of the Olympics competition on the 21st.”
Madeira Queima was not the only village apparently set ablaze by the clumsiness of this same Olympic torch runner, however.
“My husband and children barely made it out of our house alive. We knew the torch runner would be passing through our town that night, but, frankly, we were just too tired to try and greet him with the others from the village.” a frustrated and emotional Catalina Olivera Alvares explained to travelling CBC News reporter, Michael Hamden, on Wednesday. “We should have been there. We should have been watching. Then, maybe we could have stopped him. Then, maybe, we would still have our home.”
It seems homes and villages were not the only areas affected by torch-runner-related wildfires, as well.
“It’s true this area is not heavily populated, but it is the only known habitat of the endangered Redwort Tree Frog, or, at least, it was,” European biologist Micheal Vandenshire of the International Scientific Cooperative for the Preservation of Endangered Amphibious Species explained to news blog “NowNews” on Tuesday. “I fear that due to the careless wielding of the Olympic torch that has so affected this once forested region, there may no longer be any living specimens of the creature remaining. It is unfortunate, as the slime from the Redwort had medicinal properties that some in our community believed could one day be used to treat a variety of ailments, or even create a cure for the common cold.”
Since all of these incidents occurred along what has been discovered to be the route of a single torch runner, multiple news outlets have attempted to reach out to the Olympics Committee and to local Rio de Janiero Olympic officiators to identify the person responsible for the now more than twelve confirmed wildfires, at least four of which are still continuing to spread across the fields and forests of the eastern Brazilian coastal region without waning. No party, thus far, has been forthcoming with this information.
“Eye of Zatara” sources attempted to follow-up from Andre de Santos from the Department of Public Health and Safety for further comment about this issue, but were advised he could not be reached, as he was recovering from smoke inhalation after attending a private ceremony to honor multiple local citizens involved in the implementation of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, including all local torch runners, when the residence they were in inexplicably burst into flames.