fire don't play

A million miles away, I watched it burn. Phone calls, email, nothing I could do. The maps, every day. A widening circle, 0% contained. They said the fire was a wall fourteen feet high. Gases igniting in fireballs in the sky. Closer to town, always closer.

I put my hand to my mouth, watching, but only wept when it was over and I saw my favorite restaurant on CNN, still undamaged. Evacuated people I knew going home, safe, safe.

But years later the town is still as scarred as the hillsides. A need to talk about it to every passing stranger. Photos of the fire over the registers. Memory of the possibility of death, tragedy. Restoration is a longer process than just quenching the flames.

wistful, a home perhaps gone

They stack the cedar at the side of the house. It's soft, but cedar is the "good wood" out here, and it burns hot. They put the rest on the porch. I haul a wheelbarrow-load in the house. Enough for two good burns, plenty of time for more to dry.

Outside the snow is thick, the birds depending on my feeder, the cats huddled under the house. The dog sleeps.

Newspaper first, if I have it, and plenty of kindling. Two small logs, parallel. Two larger atop them, cross-wise. A one match fire. The warmth is the feeling of provision.

If you were writing about a female sheep, you'd say "a ewe," not "an ewe," right? Because while "an ewe" looks better, it sounds all wrong.

Yep. Also, "a uniform."

"An harmonica" is harder for me to accept, except as a punchline.

Yes. It's the consonant sound, not the vowel letter, that determines the a/an. "an ewe" doesn't even look right to me. Okay, now it does, in comparison to "a ewe."

You write romances, and there are sheep involved. I'm a little concerned.

Well, only one sheep.

You write romances, and there are sheep involved. I'm a little concerned.

t thwaps P-C

Trust me, nothing romantic about the ewe. Or, the ewe's time for romance was a few months before--I've got a character faced with delivering a baby, thinking that if it were a cow or a ewe, he could manage, since he used to help out on his brother-in-law's farm.

Do you know how hard it is to write a "clueless people at a childbirth" scene without even once having anyone say something that sounds vaguely like "I don't know nothin' about birthin' no babies"? Damn hard.

I've been trying hard to come up with something not about myself, for once. The first phrase and the last line came to me early, but I've been puzzling over the middle all week. I'm still not satisfied with it, but here it is anyway.

Fire drabble:

The last remaining lamp is a crude clay dish with a small puddle of oil and a simple wick, the fire at its tip the only light holding back the darkness that crowds around, hiding the corners of the room, pressing in, bringing with it cold and fear and despair.

The shadows on the walls are large and sharp and black, looming overhead, flickering on the ceiling, dancing in response to each movement, each breath, each shiver.

The wick starts to char as the last sip of oil is consumed. The flame wavers, it gutters, and then, finally, goes out.

I like it, dcp.

Myself, I've given up trying not to write about myself. This thread is all therapy, all the time, for me right now. And I like it that way.

She stares tightly ahead of her, at its flicker. It's easy not to look anywhere else - there isn't anything else to look at, just stretching darkness that resists her attempts to make peace with it. So she stares. The hard part is keeping her eyes open. They're dry, and her brain turns the flame's bounce on her retinas into pain. But it is better than the alternative. She may see this afterimage for the rest of her life.

Surely they're coming. It can't be much longer.

She just wants the rest of her life to last longer than the candle.