We're not alone; we've got fuel for the fire

After hours of blazing flame, campfires always diminish themselves into the same dying state. The logs, white with ash, crackle slowly through almost fluorescent embers that molt off of their host. Despite the lack of motion, it is hot. Sometimes the quietest of flames can keep you warmest at the end of a night. A flame may pop out here and now, but essentially the fire is, no pun intended, ashes of what it used to be.

But the fire is not dead. Poke the burial ground, and it will again show off its ability to flame. As if the dormant fire was just waiting for a reminder that someone was still there, a reason to keep burning.

Furthermore, if given the chance, the fire will spread to a new base. Place even the smallest of twigs in the pit and it will catch flame, giving an otherwise useless item something wonderful. And although the fire is always willing to share its light with whatever it can get a hold of, never will it abandon the log from which it came.

So the log burns on and today turns into tomorrow and slowly something new and brighter (perhaps, in this case, the stars) pulls you away from the fire pit. And although it will be glowing when you leave it, the next time you return the fire, having no one left to burn for, will have finally found death. The surrounding stones, still black from burn, still smell like smoke, still warm to the touch, show a lasting sign of the fire's influence, a reminder that it existed at all.


It is also important to note that this post has almost nothing to do with fire. Just think about it, yo.