Dispatches from the County IV: Fire

In life there are always those moments where you can no longer wait. You must decide.

The logs have burned down to coals, like they’d never been wood to begin with, these grey-black rocks, their underside still aglow, the flames are gone but not the heat. You can feel it strong and there is that wonderful kind of crinkle sound that pulls you in, pulls you close like the orange light which pulsates as it runs through from one coal to the next, waving across them like water. Except it is the very opposite of water. This hot patch of rock where nothing can live. The fire itself on the verge of its own end.

It is here — now — you must decide. With the wind off the lake coming in strong and the night falling fast the answer obvious. Let’s keep the house warm. Let’s rebuild the fire.

It takes but a stick or two of kindling, perhaps you criss-cross the pair atop the coals, between coal and wood wedge in a crumbled bit of paper and ideally a rip of cardboard, then all that’s needed is your breath. and the whole thing comes alive in flame.