without a fire

short story

without a fire

 
We’ve been skiing all day. Cross country on a sunny, warm February day. Across the fields, down through the hardwoods into the evergreens of the swamp then up across Maple Ridge. Both of us working our bodies hard, but making only the slightest sounds. Skis shooshing against snow, arms pumping poles, lungs sucking air, noses sniffling. Yet it is enough to send cottontails zigzagging into brush cover, enough to rattle the blue jays so that they caterwaul a forest-wide warning and the curious chickadees keep a close eye on us, dipping and bobbing, chirping and calling, as we make the wide circle around our property and return home.  

 

It's night. Kali and I are outside. The bonfire's burning and we are ripe with the heat. Everything feels familiar and is good, but something is gone. Something is present. Things are not the same. During our time together, during our cross country trip, I have lost and gained. The unbroken snow. The naked maples. The steadfast evergreens. Frightened cottontails. Squawking jays. Curious chickadees. My wife following, as I plowed the trail. All of these things have taken and given, and I feel something has rooted itself inside. It is shapeless and fluid and unrecognizable to me. It is a knot of emptiness growing, filling my gut, occupying a sense of space that used to feel solid and sure.

 

Kali’s across the fire from me. Her feet are propped upon a hearty length of firewood. Flames twist and flicker in her eyes. Her cheeks are red from the fire, from the day's wind, the sun's glare upon the snow, from blood used up and energy spent. She has a tired, satisfied look about her. It is getting late. The chill is reaching us, but we aren’t ready to go inside. A day like this needs to be savored, absorbed through the skin, breathed into the lungs, pushed through capillaries, mixed with blood. It needs to settle to the bone.

 

I stand, steady myself, and walk to the cooler at Kali’s side.

 

“Throw more wood on while you’re up,” she says.

 

“Aren’t you warm enough?” I ask, reaching into the cooler for another beer.

 

“I’m plenty warm, but I don’t want it to go out.”

 

“But you’ll fall asleep if it gets too warm.”

 

She takes her eyes off the fire and looks into the sky. Stars are spread out like frozen, white-hot sparks. A plane moves quietly through the darkness, its engines subdued by the black vastness of space which holds and guides. The triangle of light beams and flashes from miles and miles away.

 

“It’s a beautiful night. Let’s stay warm. Put more wood on the fire.”

 

I drink from the beer then hand it to Kali. She smiles at me and drinks like a child with both hands.

 

“Good, isn’t it?” I say.

     “Yes, it is good. All of this is good, but the fire’s dying and I want it to last.”

 

She drinks more, so I take another beer from the cooler. One that will be only mine.

 

“You should drink this one,” Kali says, holding her beer toward me. “I shouldn’t drink in my condition.”

 

I don't want to know or hear anything else right now. I don't want to feed the emptiness that's growing. I just want for us to be tired together. To breathe and be warm within the crisp, cold air.

 

“Your condition is that you're tired. That’s all.”

 

“I am tired, but more tired now than I’ve ever been.”

 

“It’s from skiing all day and not eating.”

Kali breathes deeply. Stretches and smiles, then folds her arms over her belly.

 

“I should eat more. I should be eating as much as I can.”

 

“Yes, we should get fat together.”

 

Kali looks at the beer in her hand. 

 

“I really shouldn’t be drinking.”

 

“It's been a good, long day, Kali. We're just having a few drinks. You're tired. That's all.”

 

“You’ll see what the condition is. I told you that this morning. I already know. And I know I shouldn’t be drinking. I should be eating and sleeping instead.”

 

The plane disappears behind the forest line, and there's not any sound except for the crackling of the fire. I'm about to say something to Kali. I want to explain to her how empty I feel, that even though I know I have everything with her, I feel different now, as if something of me has been taken away. I'm about to say this when the sounds of a cat fight erupt from the woods. The screams and growls are startling, unsettling as they rise up and echo through the hardwoods, but when I look at Kali, she is gazing into the fire and she has a soft, knowing smile upon her lips. When the cat sounds fade away, there are only the coals cracking and sparking, spitting out and fizzing in the snow.

 

“Shouldn’t you want to go in by now?” I ask.

 

“I don’t want to go in. I never want to go in. I want to sit by this fire, under these stars with you. Always.”

 

“You’ll fall asleep before always is up.”

 

Kali drinks and smiles at me.

 

              “Just one more log,” she says.

 

I stick my beer into the snow. I walk away from the fire to the place where the wood is stacked. It has been cut and dried for over a year. It is good firewood. Kali and I had cut it and stacked it and put it under the tarp so we could have nights together by the fire. Just the two of us. Our ritual, our solace, our time. It was all we ever wanted. To share a life and have our nights. And we have had many nights since clearing the property, building our house, taking our vows.

  

     When I lift up the tarp there are only two pieces of firewood left. Small ones for kindling. I'm puzzled. Drained. Confused. So much so that I am still for a moment, thinking about where the wood might have gone.

 

How many fires have we had?

 

Why haven’t I cut more wood?

 

How long before it is out for good?

 

I stop myself from thinking about it. There's no use in thinking because thinking won't change a thing. Kali wants more wood, so all I can do is carry what we have left back to the fire.

 

“That’s hardly any wood at all,” Kali says, a goddess of shadow and flame.

 

“It’s all we’ve got left.”

“How can that be?” she asks.

 

“I don’t know. But this is it. It’s all we have.”

 

I set the wood into the fire. I pull my beer out of the snow and drink. I watch Kali watch the wood catch fire. She looks awake and asleep at the same time. She is here with me, but she is gone, too. Someplace else in heart and mind making preparations, guiding, providing, discovering new direction. When she comes back from wherever she's been gone to, she finishes her beer and sticks the empty bottle into the snow.

 

“Do you want another?” I ask.

 

She sighs.

 

“No. I only wish we had more wood so that we could stay together longer.”

 

“We’ll be together in a little while. I’ll carry you up to the house. We'll go to bed.”

 

I sit across from her and we watch each other through the flames. I'm sure she is seeing the man that I am supposed to be.

 

She yawns and stretches. She is content under the stars, in the night air by the fire, inside her bulky clothes, her body buzzing secret warmth. There are parts of her I cannot know, part of her I will never know, but I try not to think about it. I know it's best not to think about it, so I think about the sky lights above us and beyond us, and I wonder if she and I have come from the same stars and space, and if what we share will give us a good chance in this new place as we begin to be together without a fire.

(copyright 2008 by k.j. stevens)