Each page of Arthur Miller's The Crucible presents another aspect of the human mind for consideration, from an instinctive scrabble for self-preservation to the unblinking calmness with which Elizabeth lies to protect her husband's good name. While no crucibles actually appear on the stage during any act of the play, the lurk just behind the curtain in almost every scene.

When metal ore is purified, the foreign particles within the liquified metal sink to the bottom and are eventually sifted out. The first to be named during the trials are, predictably, those that few liked; the town is cleared of beggars and even most of the poor population rather quickly, and by the end of the play Abigail Williams and her accomplice Mercy Lewis have fled. The losses may be painful to some, but all the same they leave the rest of the town that much cleaner. If nothing else the future generations will have that many fewer temptations to stir up similar trouble. On the other hand, the dregs of society are not all that is discarded; perfectly good citizens like Giles Cory and Rebecca Nurse are executed under the accusation of witchcraft, and Reverend Hale - the sole remaining voice of reason in the town - leaves. The town is robbed of the only voices strong and willful enough to speak out the truth. The unfairness of the situation, when it finally becomes apparent, stirs up a cold animosity and feeds the gnawing feeling of discontent spreading through the town.

However, this purification occurs on more than just the societal level; each individual is stripped of the cozy blanket of illusions that they have been slowly knitting since childhood and left to fend for themselves in the cold. Those that survive know exactly who and what they are. Tituba, Sarah Good, and the others that "confessed" to witchcraft can no longer reassure themselves that they can and will always tell the truth; their opinions of themselves suffer for this. Worse, so does the town's opinion of them. On the other end of the spectrum, those that hanged will always be seen as truthful, respectable, and completely honest. They will become the stuff of legends, the shining example of all that is good around which tale after miraculous tale will coalesce. The downside, of course, is that they will not be around to hear these tales, whereas those who compromised their own morals and scruples to save their skins will.

A Work in Progress [4]

The dry pages turned with a quiet crackle, the soft rustling of autumn leaves and fresh snow combined. Black-and-white faded to sepia faded to bright fully-colored glossy photographs, and two generations of the Stark family flashed by in mere seconds. The album fell open to a series of three young girls in the flowy dresses that had been so fashionable at the time. Tears began to spill silently down Ana Stark's cheeks as she stared down at her daughters.
Frowning, Jonathen slipped an arm around her shoulders. "There," he whispered, drawing her close, "please don't. That's behind us now. Please, Ana, please...don't cry over the past... I can't bear it." His voice was breaking.
Ana sniffled softly, burying her head in his chest. It took her about ten minutes to master her shaking sobs. She wiped her face on her sleeve and reached out to close the album, back cover meeting front; her fingers slipped and it fell open to another photograph, this one of the same girls chasing a smallish boy in baggy black pants and a skintight shirt stretched over his narrow shoulders. Ayami, the oldest of the Stark girls, was laughing; Genna's long hair streamed out behind her, and Tam was in the middle of vaulting over the back of an innocent bench. Ana remembered the day clearly. It had been Viserys' birthday. His nine-year-old friends had called early that morning and asked her to keep him away from the house for the day; they were planning a surprise party, and wanted to do it in his own home. She'd laughed and said it sounded like a great idea so long as their parents agreed. So while the local band of "punks" and "goths" - Viserys had run with strange company - tottered around her house and no doubt tore it to pieces, the entire family had gone to a park on the far side of town. Viserys hadn't been too happy with the idea at first, but he'd warmed to it quickly, and the doors of the van flew open almost before the engine died. The ensuing game of tag had encompassed half of the park and lasted almost three hours. Jonathen had joined in, of course, but Ana had opted to sit on the sidelines with the camera. In the midst of all the excitement she completely forgot the surprise party.
It had been a tired but happy group that came home that evening; Viserys, racing Tam to the shower, had contrived to be the first to the door. He yanked it open, and instantly the house was alive. For a moment Ana had thought the poor boy was going to faint. The parents had all congregated in the backyard, away from the influence of the loudspeakers, and laughed for a good while over the look on his face. They came back inside just in time to overhear one of the freakier-looking goths say to Viserys, "Hey, man, I'm really sorry. I'm gonna have to owe you a present, I spent all my money last month and didn't get you anything."
Viserys had smiled, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, "No worries. You've already given me the best present ever."
"He was really something, wasn't he?" Jonathen asked softly, running his finger around the edge of the picture. "Before the Accident, I mean. Back when he pretended to be a punk."
Ana scoffed slightly. "Pretended? He wrote the book on punk, Jon. Even if he was a little young."
"Nah, I claim that honor myself." Another grin, this one tinged with sadness.
There was a long silence. Jonathen turned the page, moving forward through the years; the entire family in front of the redwoods in Yosemite, Tam blushing furiously as Viserys gave her a corsage the night of her first junior-high dance, Viserys and his friends (eleven years old now) decked out for Halloween.
"Really something," Ana agreed softly.
Anyone who knew Viserys now would never believe how he had been back then, she thought ruefully. He'd done a complete one-eighty.
Before the Accident, he'd been very socially-oriented, always doing things and going places in a group of no less than five; he didn't hate being alone, but he enjoyed life more when other people were around. He'd been into black leather and spikes - Ana hadn't approved, but there was nothing she could do - and she swore his group had been the forerunner of the current goth trends. Every last one of his friends had been into gaming, be it video, computer, or role-play. They would spent two or three nights at a time at one person's house playing games from the time they woke up until the time they all but collapsed. (Everyone in the town had been fairly liberal; so long as they weren't getting into trouble, all of the parents pretty much trusted their kids to know their own limits.) He'd done reasonably well at school, not really struggling to make the grade but not excelling either.
Then a moonless night, heavy rain and a drunk driver had conspired and taken all three of his sisters in one fatal crash. Viserys, ill, had been at home with his mom; his dad's hearty constitution had been all that saved him from the same fate as Genna, Ayami and Tametha.
Viserys had never really recovered. For all his rough exterior, he'd been extremely close to his sisters, and their loss hurt him more than anyone could have predicted. He withdrew, suddenly, completely, and entirely. He drifted, lost and alone, for a year; on occasion he would go to a friend's house for the night, or spend a few hours at the movies, but his face was always drawn and his eyes distant, and more often than not he would end up calling for an early ride home. His door, generally left wide open in the old days, was always closed and usually locked now. He had thrown himself wholeheartedly into schoolwork and learned to all but ignore the world.
Now, with several years and a good friend between him and the past, Viserys had begun to slowly open up again; he talked more and was relatively popular in school, and several times had been the willing host of impromptu parties. But his love of games had disappeared, and what little time he didn't spend studying was devoted almost entirely to reading. He was getting better, sure, but he was still an extreme introvert.
Lost in thought, Ana didn't hear the phone ring. Jon picked it up instead. His face went white; he murmured something into the mouthpiece, nodded once with a curt "Yes, I understand," and set the phone quietly back down on the reciever.
A quiet, icy fear stole into Ana's heart and froze the blood in her veins.
"That was the doctor," Jonathen said in reply to the unspoken question. "I'm afraid it's bad news."

A Work in Progress [3]

Dreams
Ten years. Ten years he and Viserys had been friends. And a twisted path to get there, Alex thought wryly. They’d first met in an online role-play, gotten to know each other a little better over internet, and finally met face-to-face at a national gaming convention. At the time they’d lived on opposite ends of the country. Less than a year later Viserys’ three siblings (two younger, one older) had been killed in an automobile accident; the memories had been too much for his parents, so they’d picked up and moved. Viserys hadn’t had time to tell him that he was moving at all, much less say where. They’d lost all contact for a few months, and then the Stark family had bought a house only blocks away from Alex.
Ten years, an improbable history, and now it was all going to end.
It wouldn’t be so bad, Alex thought flatly, if anyone could find any sort of explanation. But this…not knowing, this damned uncertainty. It’s the worst part.
A week had passed since the Incident, and Viserys was still unconscious in the hospital, alive only by the grace of the life-support machines he was hooked to. Alex had to suppress a shudder. Not many things bothered him, but seeing his closest friend spouting needles and wires and plastic tubes like that was…disturbing.
He couldn’t help but laugh dryly, thinking, I should be used to this by now, really I should. His favorite cousin had been hit by a car when he was six, and he’d been the only non-adult allowed to go talk to him. Sanchura hadn’t died, though. He was in a wheelchair now, but the therapists still said that given enough time and effort, he could eventually learn to walk again. Eventually.
Just like Viserys would eventually wake up.
But then, he’d heard that before. And it had been true. After the Accident, the crash that had killed Viserys’ sisters, the only surviving Stark child had tried to take his own life. Pills, starvation, cutting – he’d done everything short of hanging and jumping, and all in one night. He’d been out for three days, that time. Some strange luck had placed Alex in the room when he’d awakened, picking up a book he’d left the day before, and he’d made his shorter friend promise never to try it again.
“Don’t worry,” Viserys had said with a wry smile. “I figure if all of that combined didn’t work, then somebody up there doesn’t want me dead. At least not yet. And there’s no way in hell I’m ever coming back to this hospital.”
Now, six years later, it was happening all over again.
No, Alex realized. No. That’s not the worst part. I…I knew this would happen… I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I know that I knew. I knew, dammit! I should have fucking done something!
He pointedly ignored the quiet voice in the back of his head. The voice that said, There was nothing you could have done.
He’d passed it off as nightmares, then. Bad dreams, sparked by spending all of his spare time in the hospital room waiting for his friend to wake. What eleven-year-old wouldn’t have? Besides, it was better than the alternative: that he really was seeing Viserys’ future.
But the few moments in Mr. Coaltin’s class… The lecture that he’d already heard, three times, in a single repeated dream. The blank look on Viserys’ face; he’d already seen that, too. The small spreading bloodstain just under his shoulder. The friendly argument on the walk home, the strange glances upward, the sudden infatuation with the clouds… He’d seen it all, known it was coming. He’d tried to say something, to warn Viserys that something would happen, but every time he opened his mouth it was like someone else had control of his tongue. Lines. That’s what they were. Lines. Dialogue, speech taken straight from a bleak script that he had no choice but to follow.
It terrified him.
Because if his dreams from six years ago could come true, who could say that those from the past week wouldn’t?

A Work in Progress [2]

To say that the afternoons in Demora City were hot would be a vast understatement. Ninety degrees was hot; this was nearly unbearable. The sun glared down relentlessly and actively sought every square inch that wasn’t protected in one way or another. The fifteen-minute walk from the local high school to Viserys’ house was more akin to a torture session than anything else.
A shout behind him caught his attention; he turned just in time to hear Alex yell again. “Hey! Yo, Viserys, wait up, man!” The taller brown-haired teen seemed unaffected by the heat, even though he wore jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt.
Or maybe he did notice. Said shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing tanned skin stretched tightly over muscles any athlete would be proud of.
“Slow down, man,” he said, coming to a halt near Viserys. “You tore out of there like the principal himself was after you! What’s up, anyway?”
“Just…wanted to beat the crowds out,” Viserys lied. “You know I don’t like fighting through all those people.” I’m going in-fucking-sane, that’s what! Daydreaming in class and waking up with a gash in my arm, and pulling out a two-hundred year old splinter, that’s what! He forced himself to push those thoughts aside. Plenty of time to turn himself in to the loony bin later.
Alex slung a friendly arm around his shoulders, and said, “You, my friend, just don’t like people in general. You really need to come out of your room more often.”
“What, so I can have people like you dragging me around to go watch movies all day?” he replied dryly. “I’ll pass, thank you very much.”
The brunette put on a feigned look of hurt. “I’m not sure what exactly you meant by that, Viserys, but I don’t think it was nice, whatever it was.”
The shorter teen rolled his eyes and shrugged out from under Alex’s arm. “The scary part is, you probably meant that.”
A tanned arm swung around and hit him upside the head; he retaliated with an elbow in Alex’s gut before tearing off down the sidewalk, feet pounding in an endless rhythm until his breath came in short gasps. The backpack hanging from his shoulders wasn’t helping.
“And you say…you don’t…exercise,” he panted when Alex caught up. The brunette was hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Alex shrugged helplessly. “Not my fault that I’m in better shape than you. Maybe if you didn’t spend all your time studying and came out once in a while…” It was his turn to get hit in the head. “Ow! Fine, fine, consider the subject dropped.” Viserys had always been a little touchy about his seeming inability to improve himself physically in any way. He’d done everything from running in the morning to spending hours at the gym; nothing had worked. Finally he’d resigned himself to the fact that he was, and always would be, scrawny.
“So, what’d you think about old Coaltin’s lecture today?” Alex continued. “Man, was that Nelson guy bizarre.”
“I don’t know,” Viserys replied. “I mean, he took the smaller British fleet against the Combined Fleet and came out on top... That couldn’t have been easy.”
Alex just laughed. “But still. Think about it – this little short skinny dude, with one arm and an eyepatch, standing in the middle of this ship yelling orders. It had to be a hilarious sight to see. And then later, when he asked that one dude to kiss him? The man was out there, Viserys, and that’s all there is to it.”
Viserys tossed a pleading glance at the sky, saying, “Oh ye gods, if ye be near, spare me from this ceaseless drivel…”
“Hey!”
Still looking skywards, Viserys frowned. That was strange… There were two distinct lines of clouds, coming closer and closer together, and it looked almost as if little tufts were drifting from one line to the other at regular intervals. Almost like smoke, he thought. Almost like the battle lines, and bloody smo –
- ke and gunpowder and blood assaulted his nostrils, making him want to gag; he didn’t. As strong as they were, he’d smelt worse before. Sailing in Her Majesty’s fleet had provided some…interesting experiences in the past, to say the absolute least.
His mind snapped back to the task at hand as another black ball – what weight, he wasn’t sure, but with luck the Victory’s gun crews would be able to snag it and throw it right back at the Frenchies – sliced through the rigging near his hand. He ignored it. He had to finish splicing this brace before he could worry about a halyard; under normal circumstances it would have been left alone until after the battle, but the Combined Fleet was fighting hard and the Victory had already lost too many spars. If the mainmast went, they’d be sitting ducks.
Deft, sure-footed sailors wove in and out of the rigging around him, running from place to place to pull on this line and loosen that one. He spared half an eye to watch them even as his fingers twisted and tugged at the frayed ends in front of him. There was one down, musketball through the neck; another skewered by what had once been part of the railing; a squeaker, limping already, caught in the back by a cannonball and tossed bodily over the side. Later it would bother him, he knew. Later he would allow himself to realize that the dead man below him was on his watch, that the squeaker had been his uncle’s friend’s boy, that the screams from the rigging above him were his own brother’s. Later. Right now he was busy.
Splice completed, he grasped a nearby cable and lowered himself hand-over-hand to the deck, less than four yards away. He could have jumped and wasted less time, he realized belatedly. Oh well; too late to fix it now. There, just ahead – another cable parting. No; Smith from the forenoon watch had it covered. He turned, casting about for a dropped weapon – he was a fairly good shot, even if he was just a landsman – empty deck all around, but there was another line to splice and he ran –
- pain! Painpainpainpain oh it hurt god it hurt the pain the pain the pain would it never end the pain cannonball, he dimly realized, cannonball in my stomach oh god it hurt it hurt make it go away would someone please just make it go away… Coherent thought ended as the icy water closed over his head.
Shaking, Viserys stumbled; only Alex’s quick reflexes kept him from landing on the sidewalk.
“Hey, man, you all right?” the brunette asked.
Viserys could only shake his head slightly. The all-encompassing agony emanating from the pit of his stomach made the world spin and split into three. A sudden lurch brought up his lunch. And, he noticed fuzzily, something red and coppery-tasting…oh. Blood. That made sense. If he was going to die – which he was, judging by the feeling in his abdomen – there would be blood.
“Oh, God!” Alex cried, staring in shock at the crimson puddle. He bent and picked Viserys off the ground, ignoring the way the scarlet liquid spattered against his shirt, and more than half-carried him to the nearest doorway. He raised his hand to knock, remembering only after his sister opened the door and fell into a dead faint that that was his house.
If he concentrated, Viserys could almost feel himself being lifted off the hot cement and dragged, then set carefully on something soft. It took a moment to realize that he was lying on a couch. A moment longer to understand that the faintly familiar blur leaning over him was Alex. And then nothing more; everything faded.