In a fork between two branches, I watch the forest burn.
I’ve heard people call fire a living thing. I can see where this metaphor comes from. The fire shifts and flickers with movement, like people outlined in stark reds and yellows, running from branch to branch. Like Midas they touch the world around them and leave only prints of themselves behind; branch to fire, leaf to flame, bark to charcoal. They meet and mingle, break apart and come together. They are capricious and gleeful. They whisper, caress, and dance. They even speak to each other, hiss and pop. The heat they leave behind is the imprint of a soul. The warmth of a body.
Except that’s all a lie. We love to read ourselves into things; pathetic fallacy. Fire doesn’t live. It has no mind of its own. It doesn’t caress, doesn’t wander. It’s a prisoner, trapped by the fuel and the wind. It goes where the breeze tells it; changes shape as it’s pushed, pulled. It pops and explodes when it meets oxygen, cannot choose a target because it has no will. It doesn’t even obey me; and I created it.
The fire is all around me. I can feel the heat in my lungs. It is almost smokeless; this is no green wood, to choke me with its dying breath. It was all brown branches and twists of dead wood, and it burns almost clean. That’s why I chose it for my last painting.
No one could understand why I set the fires. They don’t see right, can’t see past the metaphors, the fear of fire. They don’t see how beautiful it is, how the space it leaves behind is always filled by something better. From the ashes we create monuments, temples. We erase the squalor and strive for something new, something better; and how could that be bad? They couldn’t see. Didn’t understand what I was doing, never wanted to walk my difficult path.
It’s my turn now. Take the squalor away. Burn bright and clean, brave new world. I will be reborn, and when I take my first breath, they’ll finally understand. I was right all along.
Image by Holly McCrea. Holly is a visual artist from Vancouver, BC. She works with many mediums, including (in this case) food colouring.