To Build My Fire

            I trek my way to the site of the pile of wood that I had scouted out yesterday.  Jeans were definitely a wise decision, as the grass gets taller around the wood.  Eight different subsections of the dry wood, petrified in the heat of the long summer, range in size from entire stumps to twigs.  Wading through the tall grass, wakes of bugs roll up and crash ahead of me.  Bugs climb up my pants and buzz past my ear they do not bite, so I let them be. I pick out the wood that I want: five stumps all about one foot tall with a radius of seven to ten inches. These will be split.  The heat cooks my skin as I glance to the sun; it is 5 hours before darkness.  I begin to make a pile of wood near the trail adding to the stumps many large branches.  The clearing where I work lies on top of a hill overlooking six identifiable mountains to the North and summer drenched woods to the South.  To the East and West lies my dusty path.

            I have cleared the dried twigs and leaves off them with my pocketknife that my uncle gave me when I was twelve.  I grasp for memories of cool Christmases and chilly nights but to no avail.  The heat pounds on.  Each branch now is anywhere from five to thirteen feet long but not yet ready.  Without an easy way to carry several hundred pounds of wood back with me to the fire pit, I improvise by creating a mat out of dead Ivy.  It is no piece of art, but its function defines its form.  Lowering all of my wood on the mat and using some ivy to tie it down, the twigs crackle beneath my grip releasing the aged smell of dried out moss.  The path back takes just five minutes to walk regularly but with the weight behind me it is a half hour before I reach the fire pit.  I know that my own smell is somewhere between that of Steve Irwin’s and Mowgli’s but my nose finds nothing wrong.

            Nearly two hours have past and I am still nowhere near my desired finish.  My legs are tired when I reach the fire pit and I take a needed break and drink my water.  Throwing back my head my eye catches the fire pit.  It lies empty and hot, glowing and waiting.  The axe yard is nothing more than a rotted stump and a blunt axe, but it is all I have to use.  I begin by taking a branch of my height and setting it aside making it into basic unit of measurement for the cutting.  I take another branch of nearly twice the length and set it on top of two logs so that its middle rests perfectly between them.  The axe flies over my head as my hand slides down the shaft and I launch my bodyweight into the wood but the strike is crooked leaving a deep diagonal gash in the branch.  The second swing hits home and there is a loud crack as the now two branches flip into the air whipping casting shadows on the mute pile of raw wood.  I set them aside and resume this task until I have a pile of branches up to my waist all five feet long.  Up in the sky the sun continues to descend forging a trail of pink and orange haze.  My shirt is drenched with the smell of wood and I allow myself a moment to chuckle at the thought of being a “woodsman”. 

            The next part of my preparation will be by far the hardest but for me the most enjoyable. The five logs which I had dragged back from the wood pile must all be split.  The repetitive thump beats as the wind whistles, the birds sing and the trees harmonize.  Splitting stumps takes time.  I cannot slow my pace.  My nose bleeds from physical exertion, and body throbs, but my mind is in bliss.  As the sun slips below the mountains; using some of the dead ivy I used to carry the wood over earlier I quickly arrange the logs.  A single match lights the paper towel, which heats the twigs lighting them, and the larger twigs around them.  Fire does not erupt as many believe but instead trickles upwards dampening higher branches with light until they to begin to burn.  Tossing on additional twigs, the fire rises to seven inches.  Kindling the fire it, along with my heartbeat slowly begins to augment.

            My work shows for itself; Jack London would be proud.  Kneeling over ashes, I look nothing like dancing Indians, but I share their spirit.  I arrange my pile of 6-foot logs so they form a teepee shape.  Time ticks at a trickle.  As each one blackens and then lights the next is follows suit.  The sun has nearly faded and the early stars begin to twinkle overhead.  From here on, my fire will be my only means of physical sight.  The fire approaches me as I lay log after log down.  No longer do I need to blow on the fire, but instead the fire gusts upward firing sparks and smoke into the night.  Soon it has reached its peak height of 10 feet and is so hot that any attempt to get close boils my blood.  I cannot control the smile that leaps across my face.

            I am content.  My fire is rolling and in a state of complete satisfaction I lay down on the ground nearly thirty feet away from the fire and listen to it rumble, crackle and spit.  Its warmth, drying the earth, the heavens and my sweat, cleanses and clears my head.  Watching the countless stars spin across the sky in their timeless waltz, my fire dances back in return as it licks the heavens.  I find a striking joy in the simplicity of my fire: its rawness, its brutality, its power all please me.  Like the countless generations of men and women before me, I gawk at the weight of space.  Pressing down on me this weight chills my bones and softens my palette.

            My body agonizing with the aches of my creation I am left only with my thoughts.  Wide-awake my mind has been pumped full of the amphetamines of success.  Limp I use the heat of my fire to push my blood.  The night lulls watching the stars as I use my lingering energy to resist the urge to blink.