Last year, around the election, the trees caught fire up north in our state. There was a drought and a heatwave, it was 70 degrees in November. Good people stepped out into the street from the polling places, wiped the sweat from their foreheads.
We all did what we could do.
Smoke consumed the air, war was eminent. The leader of the free world rose from a tanning bed. Two Sports Illustrated swimsuit models lay a silk kimono across his shoulders, laurel leaves on his brow. He cinched the robe with the belt around his flabby belly.
Can you believe this is what passes for reality TV these days? my wife said.
I videotaped her, put it on Facebook.
It went viral, like the mumps.
Like HIV. Our children were off somewhere, who knows. Probably playing in the road…
Everywhere in America, black and white billboards prophesized it, but if only we could have known beforehand: wine country would burn. I think we all might have started smoking again.
The children, even in the city, a hundred miles away, couldn’t go outside. Tears in our eyes, we were choking on our own ash. Right or left brained, it didn’t matter.
Which are you? everyone was thinking.
Me neither, I said to myself.
Many people fought against the fire with fire, because there was no rain. It was such a long time before it finally rained. Our thoughts and our prayers dried up, our boats were beached by their piers. There was a run on Mexican food and takeout Chinese. The best of us turned off the television, went to bed early, let our children come to the bed – but only for the night.
