Fire on the Mountain
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Not on my mountain. Not the mountain on which I live. But
over toward the east, far enough away that the glow was huge, lighting the sky
scary. Far enough that I could not smell smoke, even though wind was blowing
from the east. This event occurred a week ago but I cannot get it out of my
mind.
Night. It was night. When dark descends, I retire to bed
with my current book, propped on a huge “reading pillow”. The pillow doesn’t
read; the pillow allows me to read comfortably in bed. Generally I read until
my eyeballs fall down.
I got out of bed to put away my book, and out the window, saw
the fiery glow behind the horizon to the east. I stared at the phenomenon for several
minutes. I couldn’t see leaping flames so with my keen logical mind, I
determined that the fire must be several miles away.
I climbed back into bed, snuggled myself into comfort for
sleep.
The committee decided to convene. “Oh, no, you don’t.” “Fire, silly. Headed this way. And you want
to sleep? Dumb, dumb, dumb!”
Another voice queried, “Don’t you think it might be wise to
rouse the neighbors. In fact, why is the neighborhood so quiet? Fire is not to
be ignored.”
“Fire races like, well, like wildfire, through the dry
grasses and over the hills and before you know it, fire will be licking at your
feet.”
Obviously, sleep was out of the question.
“Don’t you think you should organize a go-bag, just in case
you must run?”
I decided that if I needed to evacuate, I’d take a spare set
of clean underwear and socks. I’d wear my hiking boots. Passport. Water. Why
would I want to lug around more than I could easily sling in a shoulder bag?
Then, with the help of my various friends-of-the-night
committee, I wondered if I’d be safer closing all the doors and windows of my
house and waiting for the flames to pass by. Surely there would be enough air
in the house to keep one set of lungs happy. We are surrounded by a cobbled
street and lots of concrete driveway and patios, and we live in brick and stone
houses. I should be impervious to fire. Right? Maybe? Possibly?
Sure, it is the dry season, lots of tall brown grasses, groves
of trees further up the mountain but not so many trees close by, not like a
forest, here, just normal yard trees. (Never try to reason with the committee.)
“But the big danger with fire is that it sucks all the
oxygen from the air, right? You’d be a goner before you ever saw a flame. You
could die and never be singed.”
Now I’m getting sweaty, nervous. I can feel the flames out
there eating the miles.
In the quiet of the night I continued to entertain this
conversation, or it held me captive, a full half-hour. Finally, wondering why
the night continued to be muffled beneath a blanket of quiet, why I smelled not
a whiff of smoke, why I heard nary an alarm, I got out of bed and went to the
window.
Lighting up the entire sky, my raging, leaping flames of
fire, the gigantic full moon.
Perception, you deceiver. You surely fooled me.
It took so little to trick me. An awareness of our extreme
dry season, an awareness hiding at the very back of my consciousness. A glow in
the night sky that had not been there an hour previously. Knowledge that this
time of year grass fires are a constant danger. Help from the voices of fear
and anxiety and what if. One plus one
equals fire. So simple.
I’m glad I didn’t sound the alarm. I’m glad I didn’t wake my
neighbors. I’m glad the joke was on me. I’m glad the fire was nothing but the mountains
of the moon, that big dead rock in the night sky, reflecting other fires.
Fooled me. I forgot the maxim: Where there is fire, there is
smoke.
Sondra Ashton
HWC: Looking out my back door
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