My brother, he sleeps in a big room, an open room. A room that would be easy to escape from during a fire. Unless it were the water heater which exploded, of course. If that were the case he would no doubt find the finity that defines us all. In the back of our minds we’re all afraid of fire. Shirking away from the blistering flames. My mother, your mother. Mothers have instilled in us this sense of foreboding. Watching the bright lightness leap and grow. Fire consumes and destroys. Fire eats its mother: the kindling, the gas, what have you. It is common knowledge abominable things consume their mothers. Consume that which created them. I once had a sister who died in a fire. She was my sister’s twin. They were small children at the time, it was before my birth. Years before my birth. I often wonder if the other sister, the one who is considered lucky to be alive, feels regret. A pang, like something is missing from her life. If she does this could naturally be because loneliness is the human condition and not because the person she was closest to in this world has started a life in a new reality. It could also be classified as acute schizophrenia and paranoia.
As a rule we’re taught at an early age that fire is man’s greatest power. Without fire we never would have moved so quickly and so regally up the food chain. Fire has been our right hand man when all else has failed. The thing most people don’t consider is the tools with which we make fire. Our superior brain power, our thumbs, our ability to cognitively feel and grow and make decisions. My sister and I, we’re not close. Neither of them, the live or the dead. My decision making mind has failed regrettably in this area of my life. At least I know how to make a fire. I can destroy and ignore and forget. This is the true power of humans: the ability to feel and the ability to turn-off feeling.