Colored Light.
(A creative essay based on a true story)
The summer winds blow hot and dry, siphoning even the faintest remaining moisture from my body.
The sky is blue. The trees are green.
I lay rocking in a pink hammock, tied between two trees, swinging from the gusts of winds that blow hot from the west.
It's supposedly cooler than it was a few days ago. But it feels hotter.
It's the wind.
There is no cooling breeze, carrying the faint moisture, an echo of water in the wind. Instead it blows as a furnace. Seeking to cook me alive.
The sky is blue. The clouds are white. But the dappled lighting turns yellow against my skin.
Yellow-green is for tornados. Or maybe hail.
Dark green, bordering on grey, for thunderstorms.
Red for an oncoming storm at sea.
Yellow is for fire. Soot and ash on a blistered wind.
The sky is blue. The grass is green. And the light is yellow as the west wind blows hot.
A column of smoke to the north-west. Close enough to see the dark blooms puff in the center before joining into a single imposing billowing cloud.
The helicopters swing low overhead. Coming in shifts, every 5 minutes their propellers rattle my windows, shake my bed, and leave my bones aching.
I'm inside now. The faint taste of ash on my tongue.
I watch the fire from my phone. Keeping up to date on how it grows.
Its tripled in size in 20 minutes. Burning over 200 acres. A mere 2 neighborhoods away.
The evacuation order does not come.
I lie in bed and watch the choppers fly low enough to be just above the tallest tree on the street. The shadow it casts blankets my room until the light comes through again. Yellow for fire. Yellow for ash and soot and devastation.
400 acres.
They say the main flame is contained. But sparks light up new ones close by. Its taken the field I used to walk my dog. Back before we moved across the main road. The field sits behind the school at the end of the old neighborhood.
Our old neighbor is out of town, visiting family. My brother checks on their dog.
500 acres. There is one neighborhood between us and the flames. The one we moved from.
Everyone has their sprinklers on. Hoping to keep the sparks from catching.
They say it started in a house on the hill. Where the people with money, or those who live like they do, reside.
They say it was an unkempt garden. Set away from the main home. Withered from the heat, unweeded and unmaintained. Tender sprouts left to choke and crisp and die. It's said they had plenty of glass decorations in their garden. To keep away the birds I suppose.
As though there was anything to steal.
The garden hadn't been tended well enough for that to be a threat. There was nothing for the birds to eat.
But there was plenty for the summer sun to catch.
Glittering glass in rainbow hue, caught the sunlight, that bright summer sun, and scattered it about. I imagine prisms of light and color danced around the withered garden. Between dying tomatoes and failed squash. Blind and uncaring to their thirst. They danced and danced, taking what little water remained from their bodies. Until the heat was too much. Their bodies too dry. The thirst too great. And they caught fire.
527 acres. 20% extinguished. 90% contained. And none of the large houses on the hill were lost.
I go to bed with smoke in my throat and soot on my tongue. And a prayer to not need my inhaler on my lips.
I awake to sirens, and smoke from the east.
50 acres and counting.
