Writing Prompt: The fire sent sparks up into the velvet black of the night.

Ah the first Friday of the new year. I know this week still half counted as a vacation week. Even if you got work done so many people were out it was like working in isolation. Still, we have a writing prompt and as I am slowly getting back into a normal routine, I will be doing it. So if you are joining me, set your timers and let’s jump in.

I’d say I want a s’more now, but the truth is I really do just like the burned outer layers. I used to get yelled art for ‘wasting marshmallows’ but I really did like the flavor of the char mixed with the super sweet sugar. I was not a toasted brown camper. I was a set it alight and blow it out one.

Friday, January 3^rd: The fire sent sparks up into the velvet black of the night.

The fire sent sparks up into the velvet black of the night. There was something comforting about a bonfire on a cold night.  All around the clearing night was falling, the shadows beneath the trees thickening.  There was a pathway back up to the lodge.  It was marked by solar powered lights.  During the day they soaked up the sun and at night they radiated the light.  The path was a winding trail back up to the lodge.  Because of the winding most of the lights from the lodge were blocked from my vies by the trees. 

I turned my back so that I couldn’t see the pathway either.  I knew it was a safety feature so that when guests were on the property they would be neither lost nor injured.  It was necessary for the insurance.  I could appreciate the practicalities, but I still hated the light pollution.  The blue white electrics artificial and man made. 

The fire crackled.  I smiled.  Technically you could say the bonfire was man made as well, but my brain simply thought of it as fire and not light pollution.  I looked more towards the buckets of sand standing by in case anything got out of control.  Out of habit my eyes danced to each of the buckets and then swept the tree line making sure that there were no overhanging branches, nothing that could catch fire and start an uncontrollable blaze.

There wasn’t the clearing was a well calculated distance from the trees.  I bent and lifted another limb, slowly feeding it into the fire.  We had a storm a few months back that knocked down several older trees.  I spend a great deal of time moving about the property, gathering and cutting the fallen.  There were also several trees that needed to come down before the next storm arrived, their rotten and hollow cores having only barely withstood this one.  The refuse was gathered and stores, allowed to dry out.  Now, there was too much and so the bonfire consumed the extra.

Adding the new batch of limbs to the fire sent a shower of sparks skyward, dancing on the breeze created by the fire’s heat.  Knowing it would burn a while I sat down on the log rolled to the edge of the clearing.  Maria had been after me to pave the area and add in more decorative benches, but I had done that in the fire pit area the guests used.  This was technically my burn area and I resisted beautifying it, leaving it more natural.

I sat back and watched the flames dance as hey consumed the branches.  It was an odd sensation and one I never tired of.  The feeling of heat in front of me and the cold winter winds teasing my back.  There was a part of me that enjoyed that space between hot and cold, part of both but not really in either.  I stretched my legs out and crossed them at the ankles.  A part of me wished I had some marshmallows and the fixings for s’mores.  I remembered finding the perfect stick for roasting marshmallows, carving the end into a point with my pocket knife and putting the marshmallow on the end. 

I smiled thinking of the first one. I would always burn the outside, charring it black.  The marshmallows were too sweet for me, but that char give them a nice balance.  I would hen slip off the outer crispy sweet and bitter exterior, eat it and return the marshmallow to the fire.  I generally got three outer burned casings before it was gone.  The second marshmallow I would burn, blow out and add to the chocolate and graham cracker making a traditional s’more. But I could never resist the lure of the first.