Fire

For the males of our species, the universe is not decaying at nearly a rapid enough pace.  We do our best to accelerate the chaos and annihilation through wars, demolition derbies, and our failed attempts at automobile repair.  On occasion, I am willing to do my part.  If the end is fiery and punctuated by roiling plumes of smoke and ash, move me to the front of the line.

I love a fire.

The other day, I drove to my mountain property to burn a pile of junk: warped lumber of odd lengths, swollen and flaky squares of waferboard, and deadfall.  Though mold and bacteria and plain-old moisture has for many years been prying apart and destroying the orderly molecules of the various items I fancied as junk, I am not interested in standing around for the next forty or so years to wait until natural forces gradually suck everything back into the ground.

  

Not when I have fire to tear it down.

Generally, bigger is better, especially in matters of combustion.  Having chosen a day with fresh snow and no chance of my fire galloping off through the forest, I put an entire stack of wood nearly as tall as me to flames as a starting point and then danced against the blue sky, green trees, and flames.  As the flames gripped the butt-ends and crooked cuts, I circled around, poking at the jumble with a long stick.  The flames blossomed and then church-steepled up into the sky, starkly orange and yellow.  I soon began to tepee longer boards into the flames and then tipped whole cabinets and sheets of wafer-weld sheathing into the ever-growing fire.

  

One the molecular level, this kind of bonfire is something akin to the riot at the end of a soccer match between Venezuela and Brazil.  It doesn't matter which team won because, frankly, the other lost, and some angry fans soon pour into a spectacular melee on the field to engage while others flee over under and right through all obstacles in the way to escape.  On a human scale, well, holy shit!

Fire!

Bigger is way bigger.

For a while the flames scissored fifteen feet into the air.  I stood ten paces back from the squirming heat waves.  The snow, about four inches of cover, melted away from a hillside twenty feet away from the flames as my fire brawled with everything I heaped onto the convulsing mound of coals from the matured inferno.  Green flames flared from metal hinges attached to cupboards doors.   Pink flames squirmed through tangles of barbed-wire.  Sun-colored flames flagged from the heart of old dimension lumber and posts.  I stayed there under the winter sky until the flames collapsed back into the red coals and the snapping coals gradually settled and faded to black and gray ash.

A sincere emptiness overcomes you as flames die out if you are watching a fire of your making.   I thought about how even in some remote and nomadic tribes today, they carry fire with them wherever they roam with their livestock, never allowing the last ember to die out.  We are far less sophisticated now, having our matches and lighters to take along.

When I arrived at home again, I discovered that the fire had burned my face pink.   I found several holes scorched through my heavy sweatshirt.  All of my clothing smelled of the end—of sweetness and sulfur at the same time.

 

--Mitchell Hegman