The Fire

Perception is everything.

The Fire

They could not remember how, when or why it all started. All they knew that they were there now sitting on the ground with their knees drawn up to their chests, with the fire burning between them.

Another thing they could not recall was how, when or why this fire got ignited. Had they been playing like children that do not comprehend the dangers and see only the allure of something wondrous but potentially harmful, lethal? Perhaps it was the man who, in a moment of primordial, savage rage directed at the suffocating darkness and frozen silence around him struck rock with rock and made sparks fly in all directions. Maybe it was the woman, this quiet, timid creature that had carried ambers in her bosom for eons like a Vestal Virgin and, being alone for so long, decided to draw this man near - at least for a while - by revealing some of her glow to him. Perhaps they simply chanced upon it, settled down to get warmed for a while, and ended up staying.

He was staring at the dancing flames, mesmerized by their ethereal beauty, by the unspoken, untouchable mystery that revealed itself rising up from the dead matter of the logs he so willingly fed to the fire. His face was relaxed, the corners of his mouth curved up in a faint smile, and the fire was there burning in his eyes.

He looked at her in silent excitement, hoping to meet her eyes and communicate the ineffable with a look, hoping to see the fire burning in her eyes, too. But, her eyes were dark, her face a mask of terror. She was not looking at the flames, but the blackened logs, the ashes, the soot. To her, this fire was an all-consuming, dangerous force, something to be avoided, something to blot out, something very similar to death itself.

Many times she’d get up, ready to leave, flee, escape, thinking she’d rather be a daughter of the cold, blind night in whose embrace she could remain intact, whole, separate without the danger of being consumed and transformed by fire. But, the moment she turned and felt the chill of night on her face, and the warmth of the fire on her back, she hesitated.

Sometimes she’d still leave. He would run after her searching, stumbling in the dark, and calling her name in vain. He’d collapse, weep, but he could not leave the fire. He’d return and sit there alone in the presence of beauty and warmth but unfeeling, unaware, unconscious of it.

Then, he learned that she’d return. Sooner or later, despite herself, she’d come back with feet shuffling, taking uncertain, tentative steps, head hanging, eyes fixed on the ground. He’d speak to her; trying to tell her in so many words how glad he was for her to be back.

Then, he became silent with the realization that it wasn’t his words, his joy, his actions, his being, but the fire itself that brought her back, just as it draws every creature in this cosmic night to itself.

We are all on a journey through the dark. When we look up at the night sky, our eyes meet the blinking, twinkling eyes of the burning stars. During the day, though we forget, we are racing through the darkness along with the other planets as if we were in a hurry to get somewhere in the universe.

But, the truth is that, we are forever moving away and returning to the center of our galaxy to be warmed at the cosmic bonfire of the Sun.