Tag Archives: fire
The Purpose Driven Fire
Long ago, long before the birth of the sun, a great star grew old, which is to say it burned away its hydrogen fuel. It grew hot in its old age. It grew red and bloated as it began to burn the helium that it had been producing for billions of years. As it burned [...]
Ice on Fire
Between her sessions with the driver training school and her less formal lessons with Sue, Cindy experimented through the summer. Her mother didn’t need to worry about the baking powder going flat. Cindy cooked and baked through cans of the stuff, to say nothing of flour, experimenting with different concentrations of leaven in batters. She [...]
How to Look at God
Sol rules the sky, a celestial Medusa, flames swinging and waving out into space like so many yellow snakes, the failure of the metaphor being that we may look upon him, though only through his companion; a month being nothing more than the time we must wait to see the fire of heaven as he [...]
A Night at the Hacienda
One hot summer night in late 4465, the Adroushans were watching TV before bed. The windows of the house were open to prevent the house from cooking its contents. The Adroushans heard shouts outside that competed with the TV laugh track. Armen ran out to see what was going on. He burst in a moment [...]
In the Heat of the Kitchen
Though Cindy was not generally insecure, she continued to be anxious in the presence and anticipation of fire. Her parents dreaded those inevitable occasions when fire would assert itself, such as the day the toaster shorted out and ignited. Cindy saw the flames. She retreated through the nearest doorway and watched her mother suffocate the [...]
Ignition
When she was about age five, Cindy began to grow visibly uncomfortable indoors. The whole thing started somewhat innocuously with a minor burn. At the time, her parents were amused at how well she learned the lesson of the stovetop. Her brother Armen, they’d recalled, had forgotten the lesson by suppertime; in fact, they weren’t [...]
Kindling
Chainsaw gardeners everywhere believe gardening to be the practice of keeping the greenery away from the path, while deadwood accumulates within, where gardener and pedestrian dare not stray, the garden itself slowly aging into a woodpile, waiting not for spring but for fire.
Girl in the Mirror
Zal met a girl during those days of wandering. He found himself looking back on his burning home, and he thought he saw something move in a window. He drew cautiously closer to see what had stirred behind the glowing glass, and he looked through the window to see a girl in her nightgown, seated [...]
Waking the Dragon
I was no more than a boy In the company of strangers In the quiet of the railway station Running scared The flame flashed through the heavy night air. It leapt out of the coffee can and reached out to the tall and yellow grass. It devoured the standing hay in big mouthfuls, sucking in [...]
HC SVNT DRACONES
Behrooz had been given a second chance with his new job in the California oil industry, but his heart had little capacity for redemption. The spirits of the Tennessee firewater still possessed him, and the dragon’s breath filled the house. The very walls—even the frame of the house—seemed saturated with liquor breath, like a well-oiled [...]