Fire

Illustration by Anthony Liang.

At the dawn of time, there was once a man. He had walked the plains, left his palm prints on cave walls, and hunted mammoths with his tribe. Seasons had come and gone, and as the years passed him by, the caves grew colder, and he grew more tired. He was young, and he was dissatisfied with the life he led and sought to change it. 

He found a beautiful valley, the sun shone softly on the slopes, and a strong river cut deeply through its heart. It was here on the riverbanks where he sowed the first seeds. Fed by the water of the river and the rich soil of the floodplain, his crop flourished. He continued to toil as his seeds grew, he felled trees and thatched grass to make his home. Before the leaves turned red and orange, he had completed his house. It was small, simple, and the first of its kind, providing an ample abode for the young man. By this time, his crop had grown tall and fair, and before the winter bringer was high in the sky, he had harvested it. He made preserves to last him through the winter, and he prepared for the cold nights to come. 

The valley grew cold under the moon's watchful eye. He would wrap himself in furs and pray for warmth. His preserves had kept, and he stayed full through the hard months. The snow fell onto his thatched roof, but the grass held, and he remained dry; the wind threw itself against the wooden walls, but they found no weaknesses to creep through. The man lived, but it was not a comfortable existence. The cold crept into his house, into his bones. There it made a home and there it remained through the harrowing winter. 

Eventually, the snow gave way to rain, and the winter turned to spring. The nights were still cold, and the man had not forgotten the chill in his soul. 

It was on one of these cold spring nights, when the sky had opened up, the lightning streaked across the landscape, and the thunder rattled the bones of the man. It was here that he was first struck. From that unforgivable flash, his hair stood on end; his nose filled with ozone, and then it hit him. It felt like a lifetime, and it passed equally as quickly. The ground shook, his ears rang, and nothing would ever be the same. Before him, there in the clearing dancing alone was a blazing fire. He had been told stories of it, he had seen the paintings of it in his holy caves, but he had never felt its warmth before, the warmth that now cast away the chill from his bones. 

As he basked in its beauty, he realized its hunger. It consumed the grass quickly, and the man, fearing he may lose it, fed it. First, he fed it his spare thatch; it feasted on this and grew, but it was not enough. The man used his spare wood to feed the fire; once again, it feasted, and once again, it was not enough. The rain poured down on it, and the wind tried to blow it out. The man knew the flame needed shelter, and so he carried it inside. He placed it on his table, and for a short time, he was happy. The chill had been replaced with warmth; the soft glow of the flame lit his world like nothing else had before. As he sat in his bliss, the flame consumed the table on which it sat, then the walls, and the roof, and the chair on which the man was seated. The man watched the flame grow and consume all that he had built. He did not know what to make of it. As the flame approached him, he mistook it for friendship. As the flame kissed him, he mistook it for affection, and as the flame tried to consume him, he mistook it for love. 

It was the pain that finally woke him from his stupor; the warmth had become suffocating, and he could no longer believe that his love should hurt so much. Before the flame could consume him, he fled. He fled from his home and into the dawn of a new day. The cold, wet grass tended to his burns, and the morning breeze helped to clear the smoke from his lungs. It was there he knelt, watching his love consume his life. 

Eventually, there was nothing left to consume; the house had been reduced to ashes and embers, ashes that now covered the man's field, and embers that lay, glowing like stars, in the place where the house once sat. The man stood, the sun was rising, he could feel its warmth on his back. As it rose, it chased away the stars, and it dwarfed the glow of the embers; instead, it made the dew shine like diamonds, and it made the river look like gold. Despite it all, his home was still here, in his beautiful valley. 

The ash had come to rest on his field, there to fertilize the next seeds that he would sow, the embers lay peacefully upon the stones that built his foundation. It would not be easy, but he would rebuild, his crops would grow stronger, and his house with a hearth could withstand the cold winters. He had been foolish; he had let his flame consume him, but who was he to know? Now he stands, carrying his newfound wisdom written in the burns that dress his body. Now he stands, ready to build a new life, to tend a new flame.