Fire

Deep in the middle of a forest, on the edge of the country and the interior of the woods, a footstep frees a small piece of glass from underneath a pile of fallen leaves. The sun is penetrating, and its rays move steadily from east to west, traversing the sky to find the exact place where the fingers of this great star touch the first edges of the glass. It then finds the center of this small, broken object; the leaves catch the heat and embrace it, the glass magnifies it, and a fire erupts. The flames touch here, there, and everywhere.

But then, as it does, because the earth cannot stand still, the sun continues to make its journey onward.

There was no reason that it has met with the glass; only by chance. The fire was born by accident, although the consequence ripped through the trees, and proved itself to be uncontainable in its force; the heat - intense, and the flames - beautiful. But there is nothing to tend to it, no reason for it to occur, and people both started to marvel at the life of its own that it took on, and were scared of it - for they understood the damage that it can do.

On the other side of the country, where the rain had soaked the earth and the Ocean continues to lap against the rocks, a woman was collecting sticks. She wanted to make a small fire to warm her camp. She noticed a man walking by with a stick of his own in his hand. He was using his to draw interesting shapes in the sand, and appeared to be lost in thought. He had a newspaper rolled up under his arm; a collection of worldly news that he had just finished reading. She wouldn't have said that he was an image of a person that had walked out of her imagination to be the replica of a figure she was usually drawn to, but he had intensely beautiful eyes, and interesting features. He had beautiful hands.

She sat beside him, and they spoke for what seemed to be an uncommonly long time. Their similarities in thought were startling to both of them. His politics made their way to her philosophers, and a connection was born. She invited him to come to her tent, to help her make a fire, but he suddenly grew tentative and balked at her invitation. Being somewhat tenacious and aware that they were still new to each other, she continued to coax very gently, and with enough persistence he gradually followed her towards her tent. It was there that he wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss the mouth that had spoken her existential ideas, and to become familiar with each of the places of her body that might cause a shock of electricity to course through her.

After they emerged from her tent, from the intimate bond of sleep in which he had taken her hand firmly to his chest and wrapped around her like melted wax, she grew suddenly and once again cold. The air was damp, and the wind was brisk. It was not the best time to attempt to make fire, but it was necessary if they were able to keep warm. She tried several times to rub together the sticks that she had; fast enough, furiously enough to make fire. But it would not catch.

He sat there, watching her work tirelessly to warm them but he would not join in the endeavor. The harder she tried, the more disappointed he became that she could not make a spark. Sadness grew inside of him, and she could see it reflected in those eyes that she had come to adore. She wanted to relieve the sadness as much as she wanted to be warm, but each time she made a single, ephemeral spark appear, it would burn out as fast as it was born, for there was nothing dry in which to let it live.

In a moment of complete exhaustion, she asked for his paper. It was the only thing that was going to make this work. He looked at her with hesitation; his body and silence sent her the strong signs of doubt. He did not want to give this up. He didn’t want sacrifice the notations of his worldly politics; politics that he held so dear. She could tell he wanted to be warm, for his body was shivering. But he wanted her to make the fire without it, and continued to be more and more displeased in the inability for this to occur. She took two of the driest sticks she could find, and tried again, but as soon as the tiny beginnings of fire met the damp ground, they once again ceased to remain; ceased to exist. In her state of frustration, he told her the story of the forest fire he had witnessed on the other side of the world, and told her that he was certain that it was possible for flames to erupt without so much work.

“But you have paper,” she said. “If you would only give me the paper that you have, we could have a fire, stay warm and continue to talk through the night. We could laugh the way that we did on the beach, and tomorrow we could swim in the Ocean.” But the words rang hollow. He remained convinced that if she could not make fire without his sacrifice, that she was not magic, and there could be no flames as hot and as uncontainable as the ones that he had previously seen erupt in a forest, once before.

He got up. He didn’t say goodbye. Nor did he tell why her that he was leaving. After concentrating on her two sticks, and with her unequivocal will, she looked up only to notice that he had quite simply vanished. Down the beach she could see him walking away; he looked small, and the sense of loss that came over her was overpowering. The tears then came with the cadence of the distant waves, as she grew colder, and grabbed a blanket from her tent. There she sat, wrapped up alone, and grew pensive and wondered why he had just given up.

A stranger woke her from her daze. She had not been aware of time, and was startled by him. She wasn't sure how long that she had been in this state of half-sleep, and rubbed her eyes awake. She brought him into focus, and peered up at this man standing in front of her, still confused as to why he was there. He was holding something in his hands, which were outstretched in the darkness. She moved her eyes from his face to these hands, and noticed that there was a book in it. The pages were yellowed, and the book appeared loved, old, read, and re-read. In a state of shock she didn’t know how to respond. She was simply silent, and just moved her eyes back to his face.

“You look a bit cold” he said. “It is too wet here to make a good fire, but you can use my book. Just tear out the pages.” She was stunned. Not only were books sacred to her, but she didn’t understand why he was there, and why he was so willing to offer this to her so quickly. But she also felt the chill again throughout her body, and ached to feel heat. He sat beside her, and they began to speak as he tore out the pages of the book that he had offered.

The manner, in which he did so, became a slow and quite sensual ritual; for each time he pulled the page from the spine he also relayed to her, in attentive detail, what was on each of them. Hours passed in the cold, and in the dark. He told her the whole story, as the pages from this cherished book became a growing crumpled mass under the tent of twigs that she had constructed.

This time it was not difficult. She rubbed the sticks in her hands together and the spark caught almost instantly. The kindling and the paper from the pages were enough to start a tiny little fire below the wood. It filled her with an overwhelming sense of joy. He knelt gently beside it, and blew continuously and smoothly into the emerging little flames, which responded instantly, and caught the larger stick resting close. The sound of the crackling found its way to satisfy yet another sense, and the warmth began to make its way to kiss her skin. She watched his face as he concentrated on the fire, and in the growing light, it became beautiful to her. She took her turn, and lent her air to the fire, breathing her desire into it, and watching it grow.

Very soon the fire had taken hold, but was still new, and needed tending. He walked to the dry part of the land to gather more sticks in which to feed it. And when he left her side, a happiness filled her entire body unlike she had previously know. She trusted that he would return; he had invested in the flames.