Burning

         It was a time when everybody was afraid of smoke. Smoke was not fire, and it did not always mean fire, but it usually did, so we all feared smoke or anything like it. For instance: Pa got into small debts – smoke. Ma worried that there would be fire, so even months after Pa had paid his debtors off, without even batting an eyelash, Ma would invite the debtors to dinner and send them presents. Back then, there was an illusion that we were living in calm waters, and no mater what fire came our way, we would not burn. We all knew it was an illusion though; we lived in oil, not water, and we would set aflame faster than anything else. People were in the mood to be nervous.
         Perhaps they were in the mood to be forgiving as well. Kay’s famous words seemed to be everyone’s motto: “Most of us are lucky enough to live without black flame in our hearts; but those who do and have not yet learned to quell the flames are out equals; those who have are our betters.” I used to think that everybody lived by it. I know better now.
         There was one person in perhaps the entire country that did not fear fire. Instead, she set fire to anywhere and everywhere, and it was a painful reality to realize it was more than smoke – it was fire, full-out fire, and it was inevitable.
         I scorned her because everybody else scorned her. We said we hated her because she set fields aflame and burned down barns, but we really hated her because she thrust in front of our faces the reality that we would burn, just like anything else burns. Where there is smoke there is fire.
         The smoke came closer; the Birch family’s house was burned down to the ground. We became more fearful; the Birches were one house away from being our neighbors.

         In all the tension, I never realized that the girl who burned down houses was a person, a girl, my age. I only thought of her as an evil that we would be better off without. Everybody did. We did not know it, but we had black flames in our hearts.

         The Azalea Meadow was my solace. Whenever I was cranky, or miserable, or worried, I would go to the Meadow. Nobody grudged me a little time to myself.
         It was on one of these days, when the weather was cold and the chores were piled on top of each other, that I met the girl who burned.

         From far away I saw the smoke; I started to run. The meadow was all in blazes, and I could see that there was a thin figure that watched the flames resolutely, shoulders hitching. I thought she was crying from joy. I know now that it was naïve; anybody else could have told me that she was sobbing.

         “The meadow!” I cried. “The lovely, lovely meadow with the beautiful azaleas.” My voice dropped down to almost nothing.
         “I know,” the girl whispered. “It was a pretty meadow.”
         “Why did you burn it?” I asked, my voice quavering, from anger or sadness I do not know.
         “Because otherwise I would have to burn something else. A home, or a field. People depend on their fields for food.          People depend on their meadows too, but they need food first,” the girl replied.
         “Why do you burn things?” I wondered. It was not the most polite of questions, so I didn’t mean to say it aloud, but I did.
         “Oh! I do not want to burn them. They are all wonderful fields and meadows and houses. But I must burn them or else. I try not to, but I must, or I will burn instead. I have black flames in my heart.”
         Black flames. “Most of us are lucky enough to live without black flame in our hearts; but those who do and have not yet learned to quell the flames are our equals; those who have are our betters.”
         Didn’t that mean that she was my equal? She was everybody’s equal. She had black flames in her heart. Didn’t we all know it? From the very first moment, we did. We just refused to accept her as a person, much less a superior person. Technically she was not a better yet, but I considered her one, because she tried to put the flames out. I know for sure that I would not have.
         “What is your name?” I asked her. I seemed to be interrogating her.
         “Kiria.” I reeled. Fates, I thought. My own name was Kiria.
         “Where do you live?”
         “I live nowhere.” Plausible, though barely.
         “What do you eat?”
         “I eat nothing.”
         I took from my pocket my lunch. It was merely a morsel of bread; I usually ate it at noon and had a feast during dinnertime. I gave it to the Kiria resolutely, although I knew that I would miss it terribly later.
         “To put out the flames.”
         We both knew that I meant the kindness and not the bread, and the fire in her heart and not the fire she created.

         I staggered home that night, surprised that I had underestimated myself. I had not missed my lunch at all; instead I felt almost happy that I had given it to the girl. Almost. It is hard to be happy when you are fainting from hunger.
         “Didn’t you eat your lunch?” asked Ma as I wobbled indoors.
         “It fell in the river,” I lied through my teeth.
         “Foolish, foolish girl.” Perhaps it made her feel better saying it; I was supposedly the cleverest in our large family, although the youngest and therefore the least helpful. It would kill me one day, and I knew it.

         I knew something would happen, and so I waited for a drama. It wasn’t long in coming.
         One night, when we were in bed and about to fall asleep, the dull, foggy, ashy smell of smoke drifted into our home. My blood ran cold, as did everybody else’s. The Whitaker house was burning. The others’ hearts pounded because they knew we were next; mine because this was a deciding moment.
         The Whitaker house was a small abandoned shack; Tyler Whitaker had died several years ago, leaving the house uninhabited and the fields to rot. There was no harm done, therefore in burning his house. It was a wise choice, though only two people knew.
         I ran out of our house; the others stayed. “The girl’s getting stupider every day,” I heard Ma say. “Forgot to bring a bucket for water.” It unnerved me then; it still unnerves me now that they didn’t call me back for a bucket. But I knew that flames were not so easy to extinguish.
         The house and the fields were already flaming. As I reached the edge of the Whitaker property I saw Kiria. She looked relieved when she saw me. Then, making a motion to be not to follow her, she ran into the burning house and latched the door tight. I did not hear a sound. My throat felt dry; this was how to put out a fire? But I knew it was her choice, and I knew that the heavens were opening to her, where nobody prejudiced against those who could only watch things burn.
         Suddenly, the house collapsed, and I sobbed, because there was nobody else to sob. I watched the flames burning all night, and in the morning varied unenthusiastic search parties found me asleep in a pile of ashes.

         A person who removes a burning stick does not stop the fire from burning. We lived in oil, and even without Kiria we lived in oil, and we were destined to burn.

         There was war, full-out war in our country, and it put out the black flames for some and built the fire still higher for others. I was the first child in my family to be thrown out into the world to find a living for myself. I was not the last.
         But oh! Who was it in a folk tale that said “Long have the years been, and cold, hard years as well. They will not be warm, sunny years for a while, but there is a glitter of light that is called Hope, a message from the stars that the sun will rise again”? You can have despair without misery and misery without despair, but it is truly terrible to be miserable and despairing all at once. Every fire must burn down eventually, and there should always be hope that you shall survive the burning.
         If somebody told me that the Kiria was admitted into the Heaven of Gods, just like that famous folktale, I wouldn’t have doubted it. That girl was my superior by far. And even though I cannot remember the names of my brothers and sisters, and the Azalea Meadow is but a dimly lit recollection, I shall never forget the girl whose only solace was to burn, yet whose last act was to put out a black fire.